Legislation Pertaining to Foreign Nurses Practicing in the United States Discuss the process that this legislation will go through, referencing the steps to the legislative and administrative process

The Rural and Urban Health Care Act of 2001 (S 1259 and HR 2705) dramatically expanded the existing H-1C temporary nursing visa program established in 1999. Before, there were only three ways that foreign-educated nurses could get permission to enter the United States to practice their profession. The first was by obtaining a permanent visa, which was solely for those nurses who want to become residents of the United States. The second was by obtaining a temporary visa, for those nurses who only desired to work in the United States for specified, usually limited periods of time. (Trossman, 2002) The last method was under negotiated trade agreements, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement. During NAFTA,

Discuss the history or similar types of legislation.

The American Nursing Association worked closely with Representative Bobby Rush (D-IL) and Senator Richard J. Durbin (D-IL), who introduced the NAFTA-era legislation (HR 2759) designed to allow for limited, temporary immigration of foreign nurses to work at hospitals that were having difficulty recruiting domestic RNs. (Stewart, 1998) Legislation pertaining to loosening immigration restrictions, however, when not in an international trade context of such scope as NAFTA is usually first proposed by a member of congress, goes through congressional hearing and review, and if passed, then is administered through the immigration, international, and health care bodies that allow foreign workers to work in the United States, negotiate labor arrangements between nations, and also make sure that the special needs of the health care industry are met in terms of nursing credentials.

For example, Congress responded to the nation's last major nursing shortage -- in the late '80s -- by passing the Immigration Nursing Relief Act of 1989 to create a special temporary H-1A visa category for RNs. According to Ruth Samardick, a statistician with the U.S. Department of Labor, 6,000 to 7,000 foreign-trained...

(Flaherty, 1997)
The method of credential validation has remained fairly constant. Foreign-educated nurses entering on temporary or permanent employment-based visas must go through a screening process, which includes a predictor examination that forecasts their likely performance on the National Council of State Boards of Nursing licensure examination (NCLEX), English proficiency testing, a review of the nurse's educational preparation comparing it with the standard U.S. curriculum, and a check of the nurse's license in her home country to ensure that it's valid and unencumbered.( Trossman, 2002)

The 2001 The Rural and Urban Health Care Act of 2001 was designed to increase the pool of foreign nurses in a greater number of critical urban and rural environments that lacked quality health care. (Trossman, 2002) "It's no secret that there's a nurse-staffing crisis in the United States. An American Hospital Association (AHA) survey of 715 hospitals conducted in spring 2001 revealed that there were as many as 126,000 unfilled registered nurse positions nationwide. U.S. health care facilities -- individually and in coalition -- continue to urge state and federal lawmakers to ease restrictions in both state regulations and U.S. immigration law to allow a greater influx of foreign-educated nurses into this country to ease this critical shortage." (Trossman, 2002) It was feared, however, that resorting to looser immigration restrictions and a more free dispensing of visas, even for needy rural and urban areas, will open the floodgates as never before to foreign nurses.

Discuss the stand that various health organizations have taken on this issue

While hospital organizations and local authorities in the regions targeted by the legislative act supported more aggressive strategies to recruit foreign nurses to deal with immediate difficulties of staffing, nursing organizations have stressed the need to find long-term solutions to improve working conditions and job placement strategies in areas where recruitment of U.S. nurses have failed. (Morgan, 1997) "If we constantly…