Shocking Candor From Immigration Lawyer

Date: Thursday, April 18, 2002 1:27 PM

Immigration lawyer Jose Latour wrote a very offensive article about the
so
called nursing shortage. His alarmist diatribe is similar to some of the
propaganda that we routinely hear to justify H-1B for scientists and
engineers. Get a load of this:

"Either Congress gets off their big, fat butt and
reinstates the H-1A and creates a visa category
for the LPN and other support positions we need
now and in the coming years or our geriatric
healthcare scenario will deteriorate to that of a
third world country."

One thing I thought was odd was that he was advocating a return to H-1A.
Just for grins I sent him an email asking him why. Much to my surprise
he
sent me and answer very quickly, and I was shocked at his answer.

Here is our email conversation with the article following below:

> From: "H1BNews" <>
> Subject: question about your article
> Date sent: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 11:49:55 -0700

> Jose,

> I read your article "South Florida Facing "Worst Nursing Shortage
> Since 1989". I saw that you are advocating a return to H-1A. My data
> suggests that plenty of nurses are coming to the U.S. with H-1B visas
> so I can't see a reason H-1A is needed. H-1B even has a special
> provision for nurses so your suggestion, on the surface, seems totally
> unecessary. Can you explain to me why employers would prefer to use
> the H-1A instead of the H-1B?

> Rob Sanchez
> www.ZaZona.com

> From: Lorenzo Lleras
> Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2002 12:45 PM
> To: H1BNews
> Subject: Re: question about your article

> Because the majority of the employers using the H-1B category are
> committing fraud. You see, the INS has specifically said that nurses
> are not eligible for H-1B classification because one can become a
> nurse with an AA or a diploma from a hospital. Those who are
> getting the H-1Bs approved for nurses are coming up with
> descriptions staing that the nurse is really a supervisor. A lie that
> works to get the H-1B but nonetheless a lie that exposes the
> hospital in case of an INS audit. Beyond that, it exposes the
> individual nurse to a big mess down the road.

> Take care,

> Lorenzo

http://www.usvisanews.com/memo1657.html

South Florida Facing "Worst Nursing Shortage Since 1989"

By Jose Latour Date: 4/2/2002

- Jose Latour's Port of Entry Daily Column -
Why, dammit, why, do I always have to be right about these things and
WHY
does the U.S. Congress ALWAYS have to have the vision, foresight and
perspective of a three year old child planning his candy budget when it
comes to forecasting the completely predictable healthcare needs of our
aging nation?

Open your Monday, March 25, Miami Heralds and read what South Florida
hospitals are saying about what is happening in that one single slice of
America: 26,000 positions are currently open in South Florida alone,
with
another 34,000 opening in the next four years. Here's what the head of
nursing at Baptist Hospital (where Danny, my youngest, was born) in
Miami
had to say:

"They're predicting this is going to be the mother of all shortages.
There's
such a decline of people coming into nursing -- a really precipitous
fall."

The "they" she is referring to would appear to be those of us without
our
heads firmly inserted in our nether regions, those of us who have been
aware
of what is happening demographically to the Baby Boomers, those of us
who
can read Department of Labor statistics, those of us who would like to
actually grow old in this country. Consider these other figures and
facts,
culled from the same article.

In South Florida, 15.7% of hospital nursing positions are currently
unfilled. (Remember my article a few months ago about my uncle's scary
internal bleeding episode and how he sat in the emergency room for an
entire
day, because even though the hospital had beds, it didn't have nurses?)

Nurses are dropping like flies out of the profession. Americans don't
want
the job, period. They are complaining of "awful working conditions." One
of
my best friends is a career RN working in one of the most enviable
geographic locations in America (the Florida Keys), in the unit she
selected
(ICU), on the days she wants. She has a heart of gold, cares deeply
about
her patients, and loved being a nurse for years. She is so, SO tired of
the
slack she is having to pick up due to the perpetual shortage that she is
seriously considering retiring. In other words, we're even losing the
few
we've got as a result of the shortage, Folks in Washington.

The article reports that unlike my friend, who HAS continued to work in
a
hospital, many nurses flat out won't do it any more. Their reasons?
Over-work, lack of support staff, stress, low pay, overbearing doctors
(not
in the article but relayed to me by probably 3-4 dozen nurses we've
worked
with over the years). According to a trauma nurse interviewed in the
Herald
article, nurses have a higher rate of back injury than construction
workers.

Nurses' salaries grew 9.4 percent last year. LAST YEAR. All the
histrionics
which led to the elimination of the H-1A, led by anti-immigrant U.S.
nursing
unions were nothing but self-serving propaganda efforts which quite
simply
did one thing: placed their salary interests squarely above the health
interests of Americans. If American kids were interested in nursing
careers,
their move would have been fair enough. But, as is the case in
technology,
it DOESN'T work because we have a nation of ART HISTORY MAJORS,
remember???
But with one in five nurses in Florida quitting their job every year, we
are
doing NOTHING to address the reality. According to a national report
cited,
one in three nurses under 30 in the U.S. plan to leave the field next
year.

More stats in the article:

21% of licensed Florida nurses are not working as nurses!

By 2006, Florida will need 29% more nurses in Florida hospitals. That's
not
even addressing the needs of Florida retirement homes, physician
offices,
geriatric rehabilitation centers, adult day cares, etc.

The average age of a nurse in 1980 was 38.1; in 2000, it was up to 47.3.
In
the next decade, a third of all South Florida nurses will retire.

Folks, it has become an exceedingly simple analysis. Either Congress
gets
off their big, fat butt and reinstates the H-1A and creates a visa
category
for the LPN and other support positions we need now and in the coming
years
or our geriatric healthcare scenario will deteriorate to that of a third
world country. If anyone out there can sincerely see a future 40 years
from
now where you and I are in our 80s, sharing a room in a U.S. nursing
home,
and being attended to by smiling, cheerful U.S. nursing staff, you are
living in dreamland, my friend.

Without the importation of skilled people who WANT to nurse our elderly,
Americans without significant financial means will be relegated to
understaffed, cattle-like conditions and surly, overpaid, unskilled
American
workers who will HATE their jobs because, in our society, old is bad and
disposable. Those of us who can read the writing on the wall will buy
our
little retirement farms in the suburbs of Manila, in Costa Rica, in the
outskirts of Cancun, and we will go live our sunset years among people
who
smile at the elderly and who believe we have something to offer, besides
the
valuable dollars which will go a long way direct-deposited into our
accounts.

Congress, as you banter about Social Security, look around you. Go tour
some
hospitals and nursing homes in your district. Get outraged at
yourselves,
because you have NO excuses.

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