Nurse Immigration to the USA News of September 2022

Hi everybody and welcome. It's Friday so it must be Connetics USA is a weekly show, onwards and upwards. Everything that a global healthcare work If you need to know about living and working in the United States, I am your host, Tanya Freedman, CEO of Connetics USA International Nursing Agency. And I am joined today by two of our guests. We are joined by saying hi, sang welcome. Hi, Tanya, good to see you again. Good to see you. And Maria. Welcome, Maria. Thank you. Good morning. Nice to see both of you. Today's topic, everybody is the chance that you get to ask our legal experts, all of your immigration questions. It is our lawyers Q&A. So we welcome everybody who's watching around the world, saying and when we are going to do a quick introduction, and then we're going to get to all of your questions. If you have questions for our legal panel, please put them into the chat. I have loads of questions sitting here on my desk. And so I'm going to try and get through as many questions as we can as we move through this morning show. And so I'd like to start off by having Maria and Sam introduce themselves. Maria, do you want to go ahead and just give us a little bit of background about yourself?

Sure. So good morning, or good evening. Good afternoon, wherever you're dialing in from. As Tanya mentioned, my name is Maria Schneider. I'm one of the partner attorneys here at the law firm of silhouette Duncan Holt. I've been in practice a little over 10 years and been here at the firm basically since I came out of law school. So excited to be here with all of you and answer your questions today. Thank you, Maria. And we love working with Maria and the Mozilla team. So we excited to have you here today. Sang, do you want to go ahead and introduce yourself? Yes, sure. Hi, my name is Sang Shin, and I am a partner at the law firm of Jackson Walker. I've also been practicing for about 10 years as well, just like Maria, and just happy to be here and provide any information we can. Thank you sang. We are excited to have you join us. And we'd love working with both of you. So today's topic, as I said is our lawyers Q&A Once a month we have our lawyers on we are grateful for their time we know how busy they are. So we're going to get straight to the questions and ahead of us. Immigration is a very complicated, confusing process, not just for nurses, but even for the employers in the United States. There were a lot of questions. And I see we have a lot of people joining us today. Please if you have questions, put your questions into the chat. So Kaye is saying Hi, is this a live video? Kaye? Yes, it's live now. Eileen is watching from Jamaica. Tina is saying hi, cabeza is I apply but no answer.

Why? Oh my goodness. cabeza I apologize for that. I know our team are inundated but we will definitely get back to you as soon as possible. Eileen is in Saudi originally from the Philippines Samuel is asking about midwives. Samuel, you need to be an RN to apply. And Denise is from Turkey. And KJ is from CJ saris from UK and needing his RFE can I apply as an enrolled nurse in the US, Maria? So let's start with that question. Can an enrolled nurse apply? Or do you have to be a registered nurse to apply for the US, you could apply for an f1 student visa if you wanted to come to school in the US. But in order to be sponsored by an employer, you would have to be an RN. The law requires that you either have passed the NCLEX have a license or have a CGFNS certificate, which shows you've taken the sort of predictor and NCLEX exam. So most of the time, you need to have completed your degree in order to sit for the NCLEX. And of course, the Connetics Group can help you navigate that process to prepare for the exam and be ready to take it.

Thank you, Maria. And it certainly is a process we have on our website, everybody, our success path. The Success Path really gives you the roadmap of how to go about coming to the United States if you are a registered nurse. So please check that out on the Connetics USA website. It gives you step by step by step where do you start if you're like Nidan, or many viewers around the world who are just so like overwhelmed, I don't even know where to start. There's licensing, there's immigration. There's just so much to be covered. So just to run through that real quick. The first step if you are registered nurse is to pass your NCLEX exam. Please feel free to apply to Connetics USA website at first application. Sorry about that and our team on hand to speak to you and see if you might even be qualified for the NCLEX scholarship for selected nurses. If once you pass the NCLEX we can prepare you for the interview. We have hundreds of interviewers all over the world all over the United States that are into viewing right now. And once you have interviewed, if you go back to that success path, you will be able to see that the next step on the success path is right where we are now with our legal immigration team is the visa framework. So if you come in on a TN visa or green card, we will be helping you with the next step with a licensed endorsement, English proficiency exam. If that's required, then you got your get ready gameplan lots of tools that Connetics can provide you with as well as your arrival sequence and enjoy and prosper. So for those nurses who don't know where to start, that's a good place. Saying question for you is about the visa bulletin. We have many questions from nurses asking, what is the visa bulletin? Exactly? Can you explain that it's very confusing. And also, can you tell us about the latest visa bulletin. And I think we want to apply perfect to

Great, thank you. If you can pull that slide up that I try my best to explain the visa bulletin that I think one of my colleagues in the past described it as kind of your ticket in the deli line. And you know, right now, the US immigration laws only allow a certain number of, you know, individuals per country each year into the United States for green card and immigrant visa purposes. And the way they break it down is based upon your preference category, sir. So for example, employment base, yep, preference Category One, two, and three. So many times our registered nurses are going to fall under EB3. And then they also look at the various countries around the world. So this is the latest October 2022 bulletin. And you have it says row, which means the country so you have the Philippines, India, China, some of the countries where there are the most foreign nationals that are entering the United States. And then you have everybody else, right. So you know, the Philippines, for example, a high area where we see a lot of nurses, you see a lot of you know, backlog sometimes in certain categories. But for October, you'll see here on this chart that the Philippines is current. And then you have let's say, India and China that have dates that are tied to it, and how and how I can explain that is that whenever we file or whenever a immigrant visa is filed for you, on your behalf, you receive what they call a priority date.

And so Tanya, if you just go back to that chart for a second, that priority date, for example, in China or India, let's say it says April 1 2012. And how you read that is if you have a priority date that was on or before April 1 2012. In India, for example, then you may apply for an immigrant visa or green card. Luckily for nurses in the Philippines. That is its current right now. Which means that there's no wait time, so to speak, from filing a immigrant visa petition, and then ultimately getting scheduled for an appointment in at the US embassy in the Philippines. And when I say no wait time, I mean, no way time in terms of filing. But I'm sure that we'll explore a little bit more on this call there. There still are some associated wait times, but not for filing for the actual visa. Okay, thank you. Thanks. So that gives us a very clear explanation of the visa bulletin. And the good news is that, except for India, and China, all other countries are current right now, which means if you are watching this show, for the first time you're thinking about coming to United States, this is the time to do it. The visa bulletin is current, which means that we can file for you. And we need you to pass your NCLEX exam if you are a registered nurse. And Maria, we have a question here from Emily, who's asking. Hello, morning. Two questions. Can I work on my previous social security number from my previous non immigrant status while my adjustment of status is pending?

Yes. So you will have one social security number that's issued for sort of all time, it doesn't change your social security number when your immigration status changes. But you cannot work just based solely on a social security number, you have to have work authorization from the immigration service, sort of in connection with your social security number. So depending on what that previous status was, you may have made up T or a TN or some other type of work authorization. So your social security number would not change but your type of work authorization may change over time as you apply for different immigration benefits with a different employer. Okay, so there you go. Emily, when we have answered your question, and we have many people who are putting questions into the chat Wow, that are coming fast and furious. If you have a question for the expert legal panel, please put it into the chat and also Read where you're from. You're watching from it's so fun to see all our viewers all over the world, not just registered nurses, but also lots of allied health care workers that are putting questions into the chat. And saying we have a question from Frederick. Frederick is asking, can a dependent of an h1 visa holder work in the United States? And if so, how?

Yeah, well, that that is actually has been a topic of debate for quite some time. As you all know, for certain temporary visas, there is an ability to obtain work authorization for spouses. And so that that applies to certain visa types. Unfortunately, the h1 B, most h4 spouses may not be employed or have work authorization unless they have more fit into a very narrow window or an exception. So for example, we talked about the visa bulletin earlier, if an individual has filed for let's say, the immigrant visa petition, and they can't file for the last step of the green card, whether that's the adjustment of status or a visa petition abroad because especially just in the Status scenario, if they can't file for that yet, because the priority dates are backlogged that's an exception where an h4 or the dependent of an h1 B may apply for employment work authorization. But other than that, generally, the h4 spouse of an HNB is not usually blessed, or it's not on the blessed list for employment work authorization. Okay, so thank you. Zang. Frederick, I hope that answers your question. And Maria, we have a question here from Anna, and is asking if I have my I-140 file today? How long will it take me to get to the consulate? And my second question is how what are we seeing on the delays at the consulates?

Yeah, so I think she hit on the main sticking point, there was a delay with the consulates. So there's sort of two ways to file an I-140. And that would be excuse me up to your employer, which pathway they choose, excuse me, the first pathway would be under sort of regular standard processing, the timeframes we're seeing on that are anywhere between like nine months to a year. So that would be that you just submit the I-140. And you wait for the immigration service to sort of get to it in the normal queue of cases they're reviewing. The second option. And what we encourage a lot of our clients to do is file under premium processing, which is the government's expedited programs. So the employer does have to pay a higher fee for that. But then we get an answer within two weeks of filing within 15 days, two weeks, so we wouldn't know if there's a you know, an RFP or an approval issued very quickly. Once the Iowan 40 is approved. It's then sent to the NVC, which is a part of the Department of States, the National Visa Center NVC, they collect some documents from you from the nurse, some civil documents, and then those are sent on to the embassy and the embassy will schedule the interview. And that's the point that she hit on is the biggest delay right now we're seeing is getting the embassy to actually schedule the interview or have available openings where you could self schedule in some locations. There's just a huge, huge backlog of folks waiting for interviews because of COVID. And they're still the embassies are still trying to work through that backlog.

And then in addition, there's been a lot of people asking for expedites rightfully so especially as nurses that are trying to come here and work to help with COVID survivors and people that are struggling with COVID. But unfortunately, that's also created some additional work on the part of the embassy. So it really depends on which embassy or consulate you're applying to and what their caseload looks like. You might not be surprised to learn that, of course, Manila has a large caseload of nurses applying to come to the US. So there might be a larger backlog there than at other places in like the Middle East, maybe in Abu Dhabi, or, or Qatar or other, you know, other embassy locations where there just aren't as many applicants coming through. So it's difficult to say exactly how long the backlog would be without knowing which location you're applying to and kind of what did the timing looks like on your particular case? So is the short answer that we can't give a specific answer? Yes, yes. I-140 processing as you pay the fee, they do expedite it but with the embassies, unfortunately, there's no way to make that expedite requests in the same fashion. Okay. And I think that's what's so hard for so many candidates because they see you know, maybe they have friends that are going through the process. Maybe they're going through another embassy or maybe the employer didn't pay premium processing? So it's not comparing apples and apples. Correct?

Correct? Yes, absolutely. Okay. Okay, saying and we have a question and from Marvin moment is asking, and it's actually related to Maria's question, what is an expedite? I've heard people talk about this and does it actually work? So meaning expedite in terms of Well, I think Maria touched on the main expedite, which is the I-140, the first part. So you are able to file what we call an expedited premium processing with the US Citizenship and Immigration Services here in the United States. And yeah, we're with Maria, making sure that our employers know to try and premium process when, when able, so that they can receive a decision on that first part, the I-140, within a 15 day timeframe. So that's, that's always great. But then there's another expedite that we try to do every now and then these days has become increasingly more difficult because of the backlog that was just mentioned. But once the National Visa Center has sent the information over to the embassy, where, where the nurses live, there is an opportunity to try and expedite or ask the embassy for faster appointment time. And, you know, we used to see a lot of those successfully, you know, I've seen just kind of, I get them every now and then sporadically. But basically, it's when we or the nurse or even the employer reaches out to the embassy and says, Hey, can you guys just put us to the front of the line? There's a need here in the United States, and we need to get there fast. And you know, because of the backlogs because so many people are now requesting expedites, I think the embassy officials are kind of saying Who do we put first when everyone's requesting an expedite? So those are two expedites that I see. One is obviously a process that's already ingrained to the I-1 40. Whereas the expedite process for the, for the visa appointments, those are kind of hit or miss at times.

Yeah, I think, Maria and I don't know, would you agree with saying, are you seeing also kind of a hidden bias with the embassies? Yes, definitely. And sometimes, unfortunately, which is terribly confusing for the nurses, the expedite request gets approved, but then we still don't have an interview date. So that's sure, you know, confusing, frustrating, and like you mentioned, Tanya, when you have friends and other locations, same process, you know, they may be treated differently, and not because they're doing anything right and you're doing something wrong. It's just the embassy is inconsistent, unfortunately, yeah. And that creates a lot of frustration for many healthcare workers. Yeah, I think just one thing to mention from the Connetics USA site, every one of the committees USA employers that sponsor and employ international health care workers pay premium processing. So as everybody knows, Connecticut, USA, I retire which means we don't sponsor an employee, the nurses, the nurses or health care workers, ourselves, employed and sponsored directly by the facility themselves. So just wanted to mention that. Okay, Gina has a question and question from Zillow. Hi, Tanya, my batchmates already have a really CAC status we submitted the DS 260 Almost the same date one day apart. So variables what we're talking about when somebody's looking into it. And then now that what different timings I follow up my case manager and I was informed that my DS 260 was not submitted, was not submitted, but I received a contract in confirmation email that I did, what can I do to fix this? Oh, I haven't heard of this before. Maria.

I would probably want to look at that email specifically and check you know, kind of if they actually if the Department of State actually did confirm the receipt of the DS 260. Usually if they don't receive it, but they have your civil documents and your fee bill payment, then the NVC will issue a notice essentially saying we've got kind of two parts of the three we've got the female payment, we've got your civil documents, but we need your DS 260. So if you have a confirmation that they've already received it then hopefully you could just kind of forward that on to the NVC and then the case would move forward. Okay. So hopefully that can be sorted out for I don't know if it's gene or Zillow seller, and Marin is saying hi brains has a question watching from the Philippines many nurses who are documentary complete are having a hard time in getting interview appointments through the CGI federal and saying can you explain to everybody what the CGI federal is and why it's so difficult to get appointment times?

I want to say I think CGI federal is probably one of those third already, agencies that help with the scheduling of appointments and whatnot, I wouldn't be able to speak to the CGI federal part directly, although I will just say in general, those third party agencies that help schedule appointments are just kind of all over the place. But documentary qualify, what we see is, you know, once you are documented qualified, I believe the embassy will reach out and ask you to, you know, schedule an appointment at that point. So if we're seeing some sort of issue with CGI federal at that point, I know that those agencies usually have a customer service number. And I know that when I've called on behalf of some clients, and they're having difficulty that they've been pretty helpful, and working through any technical aspects. So it could be technical, it could be, as Maria mentioned, a backlog, you would just have to kind of dig into it to see what's going on. But if you're having difficulty in general, I would refer to that CGI federal customer service line on their website. Thank you saying and Maria, anything to add to that, in terms of the booking in Manila?

Yeah, I would just say to check back frequently, there's regularly new appointments made available as the embassies, there was a hiring freeze with the Department of State that's now been removed. So they are trying to get more officers out in the field. But that's obviously a slow process to get them hired and trained and then sent to whatever location they're going to. And so there's no officers coming in new appointments opening up because of that. And then also, you know, if someone cancels their appointment, for whatever reason, there may be a cancellation, just like if you were going to, you know, a doctor's office or something and someone cancelled, you could take their spot. So definitely checking back frequently know, once or twice a day, or at least every day, to see if there are any appointments that open up that are earlier than what you've already scheduled. But I know we have quite a few that have scheduled into October. So it's not uncommon that your appointment date would be at least a month out from the day that you select it on site.

Yeah, I think that's very good advice, Maria is to constantly consistently check back. And I know when we were in, in the Philippines, and a few weeks ago, we had many nurses who were telling us that they would just sit on that website and just try and try and eventually have success. So it's incredibly frustrating. And like we have seen nurses just if you consistent, and you just put in that that time. There's no easy way around it. But we are seeing people getting results on that. And one thing just to mention brains also is that all of the Connetics USA employers have a government affairs department. And if we see that somebody has their DQ, they are documentary qualified, and they're not getting a consular interview, we will flag those people with the Government Affairs Department at the various hospitals. And they will connect with the senators officers and their local congressmen. And we are seeing a lot of success with that as another route to try and help get the interviews and get around the backlog that we're seeing in the consulates saying Andrea says, Hi, how can Canadians help in the processing of an EAD of my husband who is currently on an h4 visa?

You want to take that tiny house kinetic? So I know Connetics of work? I think yes, Andrea? So we would be able to find you the position. But I think maybe Andrea is saying you can maybe speak to the immigration piece. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, immigration attorneys are able to file for those EAD cards that are associated with the h4. So it's a filing with US Citizenship and Immigration Services. And yeah, it's  a relatively straightforward process. But there's a document called the I 765. And you just file it. And unfortunately, I will say that there's a little bit of a wait time on employment authorization documents right now. I think the latest has been, I don't know, anywhere from nine to 12 months, if we're being conservative. But yeah, so I mean, it's a straightforward process so that the attorney's offices can easily help with those types of processes.

Thank you. I'm saying and so I see we've got a lot of questions. And I've got so many questions in front of me right now. So I'm going to try like, zip through. So I apologize if I'm not asking a question that you've posted, but if we might maybe already covered that question. So Marin has a question Maria. I'm documentary qualified on the first of March. I'm an Indian national but my state of chargeability is Kuwait. So Maria, maybe you can also just explain to everybody who's watching what chargeability means. Hence, my priority date has always been current. My several other Filipino colleagues who IV queued during July and August were given interview it In appointments in the Abu Dhabi embassy, but my case is filled with the NVC. What could be the reason for this delay? Is there something that has to be done? So I'll take the first part that's maybe a little bit easier to answer about the chargeability. So before I sign was describing the visa bulletin quite well about the different categories that pretty much all nurses fall into the EB3 category, and then it kind of breaks it out by those countries. So the breakdown by country goes by your country of birth, the way that you can sort of change that obviously, you can't change where you were born, unfortunately, but the way that you could possibly take advantage of another country's processing time would be if you were married to someone who was from another born in another country. So in this particular case, it sounds like maybe this is someone born either she was born in Kuwait, even though she's an Indian citizen, or she was born in India, and then her spouse was born in Kuwait. So in either one of those situations, she would fall under that W or rest of the world category, and not under India, which is quite the rest of the world category is quite a bit faster than the Indian category, what like 10 years quicker.

So once you've sort of secured your priority date, you have your right country of chargeability listed, then the case just proceeds through that process we were discussing before that the I-140 is approved, you submit your civil docs to the NVC as long as that's document Carolee qualified or DQ, then the case should proceed on to the embassy. In this case, I believe she said she was DQ in March and has still not received an interview date. I would probably at this point, maybe want to reach out to the NVC and make sure that everything was kind of in order and ready to go. And then you know, there's no harm in reaching out to the embassy to find out what the holdup might be to get an interview. I'm not sure if she's in Kuwait now or somewhere else. But you know, we have had some success, we were just talking about the expedites in reaching out to the embassy directly and just kind of saying, hey, you know, my case seems to have been sort of lost in the shuffle, if you will. And, you know, I'd like to schedule an interview as soon as possible, you know, the embassy may unfortunately respond back and just say, no, sorry, it's still here, it's in the queue. But at least you can take that proactive step to maybe alleviate some of your worry and concern to find out if there's any hold up, as you said, maybe on the documents or something you could do to push the case forward.

Okay, so I'm married. hopefully that is helpful for you. We know that it's very upsetting and disappointing when it's when you see so many delays. But we are seeing movement at the consulates, we are seeing things getting better both Maria and sang are nodding. It you know, it's really a matter of trying all different avenues whether it's content NVC cutting, concert content contact, contacting the consulate, and like going to second speak this morning. And also going through if you are a Canadian suicide nurse, we can go through the government affairs department of the healthcare facility as well to try and push your case through the process. And so Dr. Elissa is a British Ozzy in California welcome Dr. Elissa. And Leanne is tagging a friend and please tag your friends for the show. This show is our way of paying it forward for you. There's so much misinformation and rumors on immigration. So this is our legal experts weigh of being there for you giving you an hour to ask your questions free information for you. So tag your friends paid for it. Thank you Leanne for doing that. And as a JR is, can I apply as a diploma holder? Yes at a euro and we have employers that will sponsor you for a green card if you are a diploma nurse and however you will need to pass the NCLEX exam and obviously the English CJ has a question about the OE t if you have questions about the OE T please check out previous shows. On Connetics USA show onwards and upwards. We've done I think two or three shows on the OET on the first of August the CGFNS changed their ruling and nurses can now do not just the IELTS or the TOEFL, but other exams like that or etc. So if you have questions about the OET, please check out those previous shows. And there's a lot of information that we provide for you. Okay, let me see. We have a question here. From Carla saying, Carla is saying I'd like to know when is the best time to resign from my current employer. I am waiting for my consular interview.

That's always a tricky question of when Um, you know, immigration attorneys are giving advice on when you should resign from a current job. I've had this question come up a couple times. And I think where it's usually a conversation, right with, with, with the nurse and their own kind of circumstances, I think in general, most nurses they land is once they have that immigrant visa in hand, you know, and how you get that immigrant visa in hand as you go for your interview. And it goes successfully well, and then, and then all of a sudden, you have that immigrant visa stamp in your passport, that immigrant visa stamp, you have about six months of time to use to enter the United States. And so by coordinating with your new employer in the US, I would say wait till you get your immigrant visa. And then And then, you know, put in your notice where you need to, because you have that six month period to work out kind of your situation of getting to the United States and also coordinate with your employer on when that start date is going to be a great thing with many of the employers that I work with is, you know, obviously they need the nurses asap. But they're very flexible and understanding because we are going from one place in entering the United States, right. So I would say just in general, where most of those conversations have gone. It's just waiting to the process finishing having that immigrant visa in hand.

Yeah, I think I would definitely support that saying, and say, you know, you need to wait until you've got your immigrant petition in your hand in your passport before you resign. I think that it's very risky to do to resign before that we know that for many nurses, you have a notice period. And employers here in the US as Shan know and understand that they obviously want to get you to the US as quickly as possible, but rather just to be, you know, to be safe. And sure, don't resign until you have already got your stamp and you've got your immigrant petition to come through to the United States. Okay, so we have a question. We have ice saying Hi, Anna. Hi, Anna. We No, no. Well, I say is this video live? And yes, it's live. I see. And we have a question here. And from John. So John is asking, I have one question regarding the fiscal year. Once I heard that the green cards for 2020 to finish September 7, the ones that didn't get by. By that time, you're supposed to wait for the next fiscal year, which starts October 1. How does that work? And a question about the time NVC takes to DQ an applicant? It's been more than two months for me already. So Maria, there's a lot of questions in there.

Yeah, the good questions. Yes. So this was the first part about the visa bulletin and the numbers being used up. So there was some reporting that the numbers for specifically for Indian nationals had been used earlier in the month of September. There's been no official announcement that I've seen that that's the case. But it was reported in several different sort of cite sources without going too far into the details. So wouldn't affect anyone who was born in the Philippines or anywhere other than India or China, potentially. But essentially, it goes back again to the visa bulletin and what Simon was describing earlier in the hour, that there's a certain limited number of green cards each year. And those are divided up, sort of between all the applicants, no one certain country can take more than 7% of that whole green card pool. And so when they reached that 7%, that's when we start to see the cutoff date or what we call retrogression. And so essentially, what the information that was coming out was saying that the Indian National category had already reached its maximum for this fiscal year, as of September 7. And then as the questioner was mentioning, the fiscal year begins again on October 1. And so there's sort of a fresh, fresh pot or fresh group of green cards made available. And so that would kind of reset the account in some way of thinking. With respect to how long it takes a case to be documented, orally qualified, I would say we're seeing probably anywhere between 60 to 90 days, maybe even a little bit longer.

The NVC does post their, what they call timeframes on their website. So you can refer to that if you're concerned that you're, you're outside of the timeframe. If you're only a couple of days outside of their posted timeframe, then I probably would just wait and let them get to your case. If it's several weeks or a month outside of their posted timeframe. That's another time when you may want to use some of those resources time he was mentioning before of reaching out to the NVC reaching out through the Government Affairs Division sort of at your employer, maybe talking with your attorney about a way to check if the cases is moving forward and There are ways to contact the NVC. But again, if it's still within their normal posted processing time there, it's probably going to slow the process down, frankly, if you ask for too many updates, because they'll have to retrieve your case to review it, and then it will sort of go to the back of the line. So if it's still within the posted processing time, I'd recommend just holding tight and trying to be patient. I know that's hard to do on this process. But if you are outside of their posted processing time, it may be time to use one of those other avenues to reach out and push the case forward.

Okay, thank you, Maria. A lot of good tips and pointers in there. And just Dina has a question saying, and please, Tanya, I would love to know if J1 visa can be adjusted to the green card, and does Connetics file for this type of visa? And saying, Can a J1 visa? And can we do an adjustment of status for Jeff is why? Because maybe explain to everybody what a j one visa is? And can we do an adjustment of status? Yeah, so it's actually a good question. J one visas are our temporary visas that have been stated are generally for cultural exchange. So a lot of times we see trainees, internships, other categories of j one, individuals that are working either at medical institutions or other organizations. But I would say it depends on whether if an individual is in the United States on a j one visa and is looking for an adjustment of status, it really depends on whether that can happen primarily. Because since the J one visa is intended to be, like I said, a cultural exchange visa, the ultimate intent of that j one visa holder must be to eventually go home, right and actually shouldn't be to go home. And so depending on how the J one is structured, and usually it's to a third party sponsoring organization, there may be what we call a two year foreign residency requirement that is attached. And in short, what that means is, you can't get certain types of visas like an H or adjust status in the United States until that two year foreign residency requirement is met, meaning go back home and spend two years at home before applying again, or if that two year for residency requirement is waived, and whether it's waived or not, without getting into specifics is really based upon each individual circumstance. So the short answer is it may be possible. But it just depends upon the circumstances and if that to your foreign residence requirement attaches.

Okay, thank you sang. So there you go. Just enough. So we have a question here from Marlene. Marlene is asking, Mike came I-140 was filed with the Texas service center in February. And I'm still waiting for the case to be tried. It was approved. I'm still waiting for the case to be transferred. I've heard that there were delays with the Texas service center. Maria, have you seen those kinds of cases happening with the Texas service center and what are you seeing right now? Yeah, so nothing specific to Texas. But we've definitely had some cases where they were just delayed in getting to the NVC. I think there's a couple of things you can do to sort of check on that if it's been some time. Again, NVC post their timeframes on their website. So it will say like once the NVC receives the case from the USCIS, how long it will tweak the NVC to create a case for you and to send out your fee bill. So first thing to do would be to check if your case is still within that processing time. If it is not what it sounds like in this case it's not. Then there's a couple different ways you can sort of follow up. The first would be to reach out to both the USCIS and the NVC to determine sometimes the USCIS sort of forgets to send it to the NVC which could, you know, could be from Texas or any of the other service centers. And then also you want to make sure that the NVC actually received the file because we have seen in past cases sometimes where that USCIS says they sent it but the NVC has no record of receiving it and we sort of have to follow the file down and figure out where it got, you know, got misplaced in the process.

Something else that we've had some success with recently is there's also a office of the USCIS ombudsman, which is kind of like a third party office but they help alleviate any kind of case issues at the USCIS that come about they have a list of specific areas they can help with on their website. And I found some success recently in reaching out to the ombudsman and having them help specifically when like a case like this when it's delayed getting to the NVC or it seems to be sort of lost in transmission between the USCIS and the NVC. So that might be one place to start. There's also wasted contact the NVC to sort of have them research the issue. And then there's also again, always you can reach out to a congress person through the government affairs division to ask that they become involved and kind of help follow the file down and figure out maybe what's happened that it's not been, you know, been directed through the process timely. Yeah, I really feel for Moline. And any candidates that have gone through this unfortunate situation, we did have a few cases at the that were filed in the kind of January February timeframe, which was very unfortunate and incredibly frustrating. But we found going through government affairs has really been very helpful, as well as all the other measures that Maria has just gone through. So if you have been one nurse who's unfortunately had this kind of experience, and please reach out to your, to your employer, please reach out to your lawyer as well as to Connetics if you're a Connetics nurse. Because we have seen success with this. And hopefully, this is not going to be something that we continue to see. And savor has a question saying about medical lab scientists? Can you talk to us a little bit about the immigration piece of how a medical lab scientist would be able to come to the United States?

Yes, great question. And I know that we've been talking about nurses a lot. And we've been speaking about kind of the schedule a process where we follow what we call a document I-140. With USCIS, and then once that is approved, it goes to the embassy for the appointment. And that's because nurses have been pre blessed by our government as an area that it has a shortage, there's a need for it, right. So they're on this kind of schedule of occupations where they can get away from the traditional norms of filing for an immigrant visa or green card. So for your position, the medical technicians and technologists, you would there would be an additional step and that step is called the perm labor certification. So that'll be it'll become a three step process. And what's required in the perm labor certification is your employer in the US would file for a labor certification with the US Department of Labor by testing in an open market, and they'd have to try to find that there are no qualified able, willing or available US workers, which they would likely be able to do with your position. And once that is certified, then you can move forward with filing for the I-140, or immigrant visa petition with USCIS and then of course, the immigrant visa petition. So it's a little bit of an there's an extra step involved, but it's still a possibility.

Okay, thank you saying so and say but please keep watching because we have a show coming up dedicated to allied we will be talking about medical lab scientists, medical lab, technologist medical lab technicians, and answering a lot of your questions in that regard. Maria, we have some employers that qualify for an h1 cap exemption in order to sponsor medical lab scientists. Can you talk a little bit about that process and who would qualify for that? Sure. So typically, when you're filing an h1 B, we should maybe say as saying mentioned, we've been talking a lot about nurses typically nurses don't qualify for an h1 B do not qualify. The reason is that the h1 B sort of program dictates that the position in the US that you're applying for has to require at least a bachelor's degree or higher. And so for most sort of floor nurse positions, that's unfortunately not the case if it was a charge nurse or nurse supervisor that might be different, but for most nursing positions in HNB is not an option. So for medical technologists, though, most of those positions do require a bachelor's degree in Medical Technology, Medical Laboratory Science, you know something of that nature. So almost all h1 B's are subject to the h1 B cap, or if sometimes called h1 B lottery. And essentially what that means is there 85,000 h1 B's every year every fiscal year, as we mentioned before, the government's fiscal year starts on October 1. And those the h1 B's are allotted based on a lottery system because the immigration service always receives more applications for those h1 B's then there are spots available. So they run a lottery to determine which ones are selected and which ones are fortunately just sent back to the employer and they say try again next year and go through the lottery process again.

So a cap exempt employer has the advantage that they are exempt from that lottery and the way that an employer becomes cap exempt it there's a couple different sort of varieties that it probably doesn't matter too much but it would be something you do Want to discuss with your hospital? If they are, in fact a Catholic exempt employer or your sponsor, I guess it may not necessarily be a hospital. But many hospitals can qualify for the cap exemption if they're non for profit, and they have relationships with local universities where there may be teaching students at their hospital. That's one way we commonly see that hospitals can be exempt from that HMNB cap. So if they are exempt, then they don't have to file through that lottery, they can file an h1, B, basically, at any time of the year. And the government would just approve the case, assuming of course, all the other requirements are met. And then the applicant, the medical technologist who's overseas could apply for the h1 visa in November in January and March, it doesn't matter. Whereas those who are going through the lottery, there's a very specific timeline based off the government's fiscal year that has to be followed. So that's really the main advantage is that you don't have to go through that lottery process. So there's no risk that your case might not get selected in the lottery. And then also that you can apply anytime of the year for the h1 B, regardless of when the lottery is taking place.

Okay, so there are options for medical lab scientists, medical lab technologist, and it's really important to educate yourself about that saver. And I see we have some other medical lab technologist we've got Samuel also watching. Please keep watching. Oh, we've got Muhammad also watching, I see a lot of people on the Allied side, please keep watching. We're going to have a whole show dedicated to this topic. There's a lot of interest from people all over the world. And if you have if you have an idea of what you want to hear about on an onward and upward show, please put that into the chat. We love to get your comments, your feedback, and your input. And we'd be happy to do a show on whatever topic you are interested in and feel would be important for you. And Donnie is from Australia, Joelle from Iraq. Alex has a question and he's from Israel to deal with the IELTS or the TOEFL. Alex, please go ahead and watch out. We have many onwards and upwards shows on this topic. There was a change as I mentioned, the first of August from the CGFNS, who they are now also offering nurses to do other English tests if you were not trained in English as well, such as ODT or Pearson Vue. And please check out the Canadian college every Monday because we have free classes for nurses on those different language tests. Timothy from Philippines joy is watching Samuels, also medical technologist, please go ahead and apply to Connetics USA, we have many medical technologist positions from all over the United States. And Danny has I hope I'm pronouncing that right. And has a question about the E three visa for Australians. Maria, can we use that visa for nurses?

Um, so in the past we have but really the answer is probably no. The reason is that the E three has that same requirement that I mentioned about the h1 B that the job has to require a bachelor's degree. So I know maybe five or 10 years ago, we were able to get some nurses in on E three. But in my experience, the embassies in Australia have really kind of cut that line off. So again, if it's a charge nurse and nurse educator and your supervisor, maybe some kind of a you know, a special position where it does require a bachelor's in nursing or greater than that position would qualify for an E three. But if it's just sort of an entry level, floor nurse position that requires an associate's or a diploma, unfortunately, that would not be applicable for an E three. Okay, thank you, Maria. Muhammad has a question. And Muhammad is a medical lab technician sane, and got a job offer and finished the visa screen. How long would a medical lab technician take to be able to get to the United States?

I think it would. I mean, I think also if depending on where you said a visa screen, so again, we're talking about the process earlier with that additional step. And depending on where Mohammed is in that process, I will say just in some the immigrant visa portion, rescheduling the visa appointments as we've been talking about, that process is the same for most people, right. But depending on if they're they are filing or have filed the employers file for a perm labor certification or not, you know, depending on where they are there. If it's at the very beginning, I could say probably about a year, year and a half. Just given the government processing time just one thing that we've kind of been highlighting perm labor certification also to the Department of Labor has their own on processing times, the employer is required to file a prevailing wage determination. And then also, once the perm is ultimately filed, there are additional Department of Labor processing times. So you know, if it's from the very beginning, I generally quote anywhere from about a year and a half to two years as a conservative estimate. Now remember, these estimates are always given. Because a we're only kind of tracking monthly what's happening at each of these places or each of these government entities, but I'll give that conservative estimate knowing that it can happen a little bit faster.

Okay, thank you saying, and I'm just looking at the clock and we have very limited time left and lots of questions. I'm like racing through here trying to see which questions and we haven't asked. And there's a question here from Robin. Maria Robin says I was caught on retrogression, and I have received my welcome data from the NVC now, I changed my petitioner now and I'm required to submit my I-140. approval notice while filing my new I-140. My old petitioner is not providing the notice. I filed the FOIA USCIS but they couldn't find my records. Will the NVC have my notice? And do you think I need to file a FOIA in NVC? Since my papers have moved to the NVC? What advice would you give Robin Maria? So it sounds like she's trying or he I guess Robin could be a he or she is trying to recapture a previous priority date. And there's sort of a list of things you could provide to the immigration service. When you're going through that process. of asking for the recapture. It's important to note that the recapture is always at the discretion of the immigration service. So even if you provided the best possible evidence, there's some chance they don't allow the reCAPTCHA. But my experience has been that they're pretty amenable to giving you the old priority date, as long as you have some paperwork showing that it existed. So that could be an I-140 approval notice that's obviously the best evidence that we would have. Other things we might include would be like an I-140. receipt with a screenshot from the USCIS website showing that the I-140 was approved even though we don't have the approval notice itself.

If you have paperwork from the NVC, as Robin was mentioning, that shows your previous priority date that can be submitted to the immigration service. Really any documentation you have preferably from a government entity that shows your name, and some case ID whether it's the NVC case ID or the I 140 receipt number, and then also your priority date, or as I mentioned, like a screenshot that confirms that the hour before he was approved. That reCAPTCHA process, though has to be done at the USCIS. It's not done at the NVC. So it's important that whenever that evidence is that you're including it with the I 140 filing and requesting the recapture at that point in the process, if the case has already progressed in the NVC, the only way to get a recapture of a priority would be to send the case back to the USCIS, have them reopen the file, review the request for recapture and then make a determination and send it back to the NVC which is obviously quite a quite a bit of extra time of processing. So it's important to try to get that documentation on the front end before the I 140 is filed, as opposed to waiting until the case reaches the NVC.

Yeah. And my heart just breaks for Robin and many other nurses in a similar situation who've been trying for many, many, many, many, many years to come to the United States. So Robin, we hope after all these efforts that you are able to get to the United States. And okay, so this will be the last few questions, everybody. And so we have a question from David and Salcedo. I know David. And David has a question saying about retrogression. How is the visa bulletin going to be the for Filipino born applicants for 2023? What is your r comments on what you think is going to happen in the coming year? Maria was mentioning this earlier, there are kind of these unofficial official individuals that always comment on what's going to happen in the upcoming year as a practitioner, I read about those things. But I actually don't pay attention to them too much because, you know, for Filipinos, Filipino nurses and EB3, it's current in October, right. And it's been current, I believe, for quite some time. So I think that we go month to month, we check when it comes out. And in my point of view, the forecast looks good for it to continue to stay current. But I mean, like I said like there are some ways to kind of see what those might be. But there's nothing official that ever comes out until it's posted. Right and so my forecast is very optimistic always and I think we're would be good for 2023.

Okay, good. Well, we hope you're right saying as we know, there's no, there's no way to tell 100%. But the one thing that we do know for sure, and that is that it's current right now. So if you are watching this, if you have not yet passed your NCLEX exam, if you are a registered nurse and you want to come to the United States, now is the time to apply for your NCLEX. Now is the time to apply to Connetics USA and we'd be happy to find you, a petitioner, we have sponsors all over the United States, if you have a sustained California, a brother in New York, a friend in Florida and a relative in Texas, we were saying is if you want to go to Ohio, wherever it is that you want to go, we have positions. So now is the time because we know right now it is current. And okay, we in the last few minutes. So Phyllis, Phyllis does has a question I had filed with a different agency and had to terminate my contract of a placement. So what would happen if I would join Connetics? So Melissa, that's actually a question for me. And so basically, what would happen is, first of all, you would need to release, get a release, always be ethical, always do the right thing, and get a release from the previous employer, you might have to pay out money, I'm not sure what you assigned. And once you've done that, you can hit Get your I-140. And we can recapture that previously approved I-140. And we can get your employer, hopefully that you will be happy with what I know that you would be happy with. Rain has a question. And this is going to be the last question Maria for Marina, What documents do we need to bring during the embassy interview.

So there's a specific list of civil documents that the NVC would have collected from you, to get you through that document airily, to get you to a document fairly qualified sort of place that you can register or be scheduled for an interview, depending on which location you're in, you want to take all of those civil documents, but in their original form. So that's things like your birth certificate, your marriage certificate, if you have one, your passport, your visa screen, you know, all of those documents that you would have collected previously, and sent in copies, you now need to take the originals. And then in addition to that, you'll need to complete your medical exam before the interview takes place. And each Embassy has sort of a different procedure for how that's accomplished. But most of the embassies will provide to you a list of physicians that are sort of approved to conduct that exam. And then either physician will give you the exam in a sealed envelope that you carry to the embassy interview, or increasingly, we're seeing that the physician will just send the exam straight through to the embassy, and they'll have it there when you arrive. But as far as the documents that you need to carry, those are those civil documents in original form. And then depending on the time that's taken, since your I 140 was approved, and which again, which embassy location you're at, you'll likely also need a letter from your employer in the US that confirms the job that was provided or offered and I-140 is still available and open and that the employer, of course, still very much wants you to come to the US. And that's something most of the employers I think Connetics works with are very used to and have a letter kind of ready to go, that they'll be able to provide to you in advance of your interview.

Yes, we have a very structured set system. And we work with both saying and Maria, and the Mozilla can help team on. And if you have questions about the consulate interview, I would encourage you to check out one of the onwards and upwards shows, it's called back to basics. It really tells you everything that you need to know about the process. And we have a whole segment that we do on the continent interview, what are the documents, what are the questions you can typically expect how to prepare yourself to make sure that you can make your American dream a reality which is what we are all working towards. And you can see that on our social media on our website. We also have a guide book for you to download, because it's free information only for all nurses to be able to learn about the process. So I want to finish off and thank Maria and saying this was a very informative hour. We it was a lot of fun. And thank you to everybody for all your questions. And before you leave us I just want to remind everybody about upcoming shows. And so we have an upcoming shows on the 20th we have added a fourth talk show clinical differences in the IDI and on the 23rd Rent how to rent an apartment in the United States on the seventh of October. Very important topic next generation NCLEX exam. The NCLEX exam is going to be changing and we're going to be learning about that on the 14th our legal expert panel will be back with immigration Q&A On the 18th we have the love for a talk show Talking about the Filipinos association in the United in the United States. And on the 21st. We have stateside where we highlight a specific state North Carolina was the top contender in the poll. So we'll be talking about North Carolina and on the 28th. We'll be talking about supporting your spouse through the transition. And I'll Connetics college every Monday 5am Pacific Time. These are free classes. Everybody I saw they were questions about NCLEX questions about the English exams, please check the time in your country. And also last but not least, the Connetics initiatives. Just a few things to bear in mind all Connetics nurses and med techs get a free English scholarship we pay for a review course for you. This is part of our Connetics care package, we have a free NCLEX scholarship,  $1,000 referral fee and for encourage you to refer an NCLEX passer and on the 30th of September. listen to our podcast nursing in America, we have a Nurse Aide program, watch our show every Friday Connetics college every Monday, and if you're an allied worker, we have many opportunities for you around the world. So with that, I want to finish off thank you so much to saying thank you so much to Maria and have a great weekend everybody onwards and upwards. Thank you bye bye