Have you caught the new “Nurse Jackie” TV Show?  …saint or sinner?

BusinessWeek‘s 4th article in its Immigration in the Recession series concerns the extreme shortage of nurses in the USA.  The article addresses that proponents of foreign nurse recruiting feel that the nurse shortage is negatively affecting patient health; that expanding into government-funded healthcare will escalate the situation. Other points of view assert that domestic nurses should be utilized and trained to put US workers back on the job; however, there is no such system in place for educating and training nurses on a mass scale in the USA to make a dent in the shortage that will only continue to increase with time.  This debate must culminate in nurse legislation being passed by Congress.

We link to this document:

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/7499686/AILA-Open-Forum—Dept-of-Labor

We link to this document

Notes address Premium Processing, changes to the H-1B program, changes in how to contact USCIS by telephone, amongst other matters.

Recent panel discussions at the AILA Conference in NV focused on the H-1B program.  The $500 anti-fraud fee collected for H-1B and L-1 visas is being used to hire more investigators.  Business practices once considered “the norm” and perhaps not perfect – are being scrutinized and employers are being penalized for document violations and overall inattention to detail. Consular offices and USCIS are asking for photos of premises, employment agreements, business licenses and organizational charts.  These requests are way out of bounds, and considerably prolong case processing creating tremendous stress for all parties concerned – the employer, the employee and the immigration practitioner.

A recent posting on AILA of a Fraud Summary Sheet (that wasn’t posted for very long!) for H-1B and L-1 cases, presumes fraud if one meets 2 out of 3 criteria:  doing business for fewer than ten years, has fewer than 25 employees, and/or has less than $10 million in revenue.  Many high-profile, very reputable organizations are receiving these Requests for Evidence based on the Fraud Cheat Sheet without any basis in reality.

This preoccupation with fraud in the H-1B and L-1 programs is likely to continue in the upcoming year.  So, in terms of supporting evidence….a word to the wise…

Hello:  Wanted to share a few excellent resources with you today:

1)  New website that produces podcasts about nurses called Nurse Station.  Check them out, you’ll like it: 

http://nursesstation.wordpress.com/

2) Wanted to share our own Immigration Solutions podcast on the topic of  “Living and Working in Canada” – a User Friendly Immigration System”.  If you’d like a free assessment, please contact us at info@immigrationsolution.net.

A “desktop raid” is how the workers’ representative, John M. Grant, vice president of Local 770 of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, described the scenario. Overhill, a $200-million-a-year company that provides frozen meals for clients such as American Airlines, Panda Express, Safeway and Jenny Craig, says it had no choice: An Internal Revenue Service audit found that 260 workers had provided “invalid or fraudulent” Social Security numbers. The government took no action against the workers. But Overhill did: All of the employees were fired May 31.  We link to the story

For those of you who are not aware, AILA is the abbreviation for the American Immigration Lawyer’s Association.

We will be reporting the next few days on some of the highlights and pertinent information from the NV AILA Conference.

…How about the return of Premium Processing (expedite service) for I-140’s:  EB-1for outstanding professors and researchers ONLY; EB-2 (does not include National Interest Waivers) and EB-3.  No exact date was offered, but it was stated that this would be implemented toward the end of the summer 2009.  Please remember to discuss this thoroughly with an expert attorney in immigration law to determine if this is a viable option for you.

The New York Times reports that DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano has granted a two-year reprieve to widows and widowers of US Citizens whose applications for permanent residency were denied due to the death of their spouses. “While Ms. Napolitano’s order does not change or abolish the law, as its opponents have sought, it suspends action, including deportation proceedings, in cases involving widows and widowers who reside in the United States and were married for fewer than two years before their spouses died.”

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