But as I outlined earlier. each year our hospitals have to fight to keep these nurses from being sent home. In fact. it is estimated that without this legislation before us. New Jersey could lose 37 percent of our current foreign nursing staff as their visas expire in 1990. This. as in other States. will create a significant eap in preexisting quality of care due to the severe staff shortages already in place. H.R. 3259 will help alleviate this nursing problem. This bill would allow foreign nurses who have worked in the United States for at least 3 years as a practicing nurse to apply for permanent resident status without regard to immigration quotas. This should help our facilities by removing the annual visas problems they have to resolve for their employees and restore some longterm stability to staffing requirements. It meets a critical need while not displacing American nurses and are necessary to supplement our home nursing staff. While this legislation represents a good start to addressing our nursing shortage. it is clear to everyone involved that the greater problem must be addressed by much broader programs of nurse recruiting and retention.
Keywords matched
immigration visas