October 5 Weekly Roundup: American Dreams
There are nursing opportunities in various countries, but there’s no denying that the United States was the first one that crossed the minds of almost all Filipino nurses. The attractiveness of the American Dream holds true until now, evident in how the recent news has excited the local nursing scene once again: After continuous months of retrogression, the Priority Date for the E.B.-3 immigrant visa has become current this month of October.
How important is this news anyway? Very much, as it basically shortens the duration of the U.S. nurse application process. You see, the E.B.-3 visa is the employment-based immigrant visa that the U.S. Immigration has assigned to foreign-trained nurses who would like to work in their country. They issue only a limited number of E.B.-3 visas every year which they usually manage through chronological order: The earlier they receive a petition, or an employer’s formal request for someone’s visa, the earlier they will process the visa. The date when they receive a petition is called the Priority Date, which they use as the main reference point when it comes to processing visas chronologically.
Starting 2006 – 2007, the demand for E.B.-3 visas has been exceeding the number of visas that can be issued in that applications are being processed much later than the applicants’ Priority Dates. This late processing of visas is more popularly known as retrogression, a situation where a petition gets processed much later than the date of its filing. When there’s retrogression, an E.B.-3 visa application will only get processed after several months or years, therefore affecting the duration of the process and the quantity of Filipino nurses that can fly out within the year.
The pandemic may have recently slowed down the demand for E.B.-3 visas, therefore encouraging the U.S. Immigration to process as many E.B.-3 visa applications as possible. Last month, the U.S. Immigration announced that October 2020’s Priority Date is “Current”, meaning they can process all E.B.-3 visa petitions that were filed this month or earlier. Nurses do not have to wait that long to get deployed anymore, since they can immediately proceed with visa processing.
Couple this news with a recent feature on Filipino NY-based RN Kym Villamer and Joe Biden’s public support for Filipino frontliners, and you’ll definitely be more encouraged to work on your U.S. application! So if you haven’t taken the NCLEX yet, you must schedule yours ASAP through our partner overseas licensing agency, Tracker: A new NCLEX version has actually taken effect this month, so you may need their advice to be more prepared for this. If you’ve already passed your NCLEX and IELTS, you may apply to one of our U.S. clients, Professional Healthcare Recruiters! Medical / Surgical, ICU, CCU, Telemetry and ER RNs with at least 1 year of post-license experience in their respective areas are encouraged to apply. Simply sign-up at https://tinyurl.com/AbbaHRSep2020 or email your NCLEX Pass Letter and IELTS TRF to charlene.vergara@abba.ph.
As a POEA Awardee of Excellence that specializes in the recruitment of nurses for various countries, we always say that large-scale overseas opportunities like these have their own time. So when iimpactful changes like these happen, it’s important for nurses to take the chance!
