July 20, 2004

New Exemption to Visa Screen for Some Health Care Workers

On July 19, 2004, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that certain foreign health care workers from Canada and Mexico will remain exempt, for a period of one year, from the foreign health care worker certification requirement. The announcement will publish later this week in the Federal Register.

The exemption applies only to Canadian and Mexican TN (NAFTA professional) health care workers who were employed in TN nonimmigrant status before September 23, 2003 and held a valid license from a U.S. jurisdiction before September 23, 2003.

This is an exemption from a requirement announced July 23, 2003 to take effect July 26, 2004. The credential certification requirement is one that was waived in light of the shortage of health care workers in the U.S. and the logistics of putting in to place a credential evaluation programs for foreign health care workers entering or extending their stay in the U.S. Some of the covered occupations include: Audiologists, Medical Technicians, Medical Laboratory Technologists, Nurses, Occupational Therapists, Physical Therapists, Physician Assistants and Speech Language Pathologies. Physicians and Pharmacists are not included in this list as they have their own separate credentials evaluations that have been in effect for some time.

Foreign health care workers who are subject to the new foreign health care worker certification requirement will be inadmissible to the U.S., and ineligible for an extension of status or change of status if they are already in the United States, unless they present a certificate granted by an approved credentialing organization.

The one-year transition period was deemed as sufficient in providing foreign health care workers worldwide with the needed time to complete the credentials certification. In the case of Canadian and Mexican TN health care workers, however, USCIS has determined that an extended transition period is needed. Many Canadian and Mexican citizens working in the border regions regularly travel across their respective borders. Because the process of obtaining certification is not an immediate one, USCIS has extended the transition period for Canadian and Mexican TN health care workers for an additional year to avoid disruption to the regional health care systems along the Canadian and Mexican borders.

Unfortunately, this exemption does not address the similar concerns of other foreign nationals who will be subject to the credentials evaluation process and who will not be able to complete the evaluation process as quickly as U.S. employers will need them to fill positions in critical shortage areas of the health care industry. Organizations affected by this are encouraged to continue to press Congress and the Department of Homeland Security to extend the waiver beyond this new limited exemption for Canadians and Mexicans.