Exemption of J1 Physicians

[nashdel]

I was reading thread about exempting J 1 Physicians from GC quota. Last month I had written to several senate members. Most of the email came back with reply that we accept letters from state residents only. Anyway, I got a reply from my state senator in mail. I had mentioned exempting J 1 from counting. Senator or his staff seems sympathetic to my situation but they offered to help me. wanted to know details of my case. I understand they can not help individually. However, I was encouraged by response. I had given several reasons why J 1 physicans are different from rest of Employment based immigration. For example.

Unlike most other workers, we create employment even when on H 1B. Nurses and other staff in office and hospital partly depend on us. Next, support industries like physical thearpist, Home heatlh care, Drug companies benefit from our presence. In additional we help in productivity of population by providing health care. J 1 physician do not and can not discriminate based on paying capacity of population thereby serves indigent population and takes burden off the county heatlh department.

I also mentioned that How I help by buying home, paying taxes etc etc.

I think whenever US population is against immigration, they talk about people who potentially take their jobs, (who knows they do or not). Anyway, I think most US population would like MD to stay here. I am sure in communities we serve, people will write to senators to keep us here.

With baby boomers health care needs are going to increase even further.

So these are the points we are different. I did propose all other things which technical people put in their letter but added exemption of J1 physician as first point in letter.

Do you think what I said make sense. If it does may be we should write letters to senators of our states. Senator Conrad may be one person who can help us most. Afterall he has created this program. I think this kind of bill will be difficult to introduce (as not much personal benefits, we do not have multinational behind us) but it will be easier to pass.

 

[posmd]

Good Initiative

Nashdel, I believe this is a good opportunity to work with your senators staff to ask him to maybe add this to a future legislation.
I agree with you, our situation especially for NIW beneficiary physicians is a situation where we should be exempted from these quotas. After all we are already working in federally designated shortage areas and further we are generating employment and providing access to a vital service, we were already deemed to be needed by our exemption from the labour certification process for NIW and our immigration has beed deemed in the national interest. Many of the senators with large numbers of rural constituents will have some sympathy to our cause, After all if one is committed to serving in an area for 5 years, that ought to be the extent of the duration of his wait, that is the intent of the law as well when it was written that you spend 5 of 6 years in such an area practicing full time. Many rural communities are also aware that FMGs are the pool from which they are realistically able to recruit since american docs generally choose metro areas.
Recently Jan P******* law group posted a letter which could be sent to senators/congressmen. This is as below.

Date

The Honorable [full name of Senator or Congressperson [address in Washington, DC]

Dear [Senator or Congressperson]:

We want to thank you for all the help you have provided to us and our community in securing the services of J-1 Physicians in the past. The physicians have made a tremendous positive contribution to delivering health care to many elderly, indigent rural Americans. [Brief sentence describing your particulars].

It was with great alarm we learned that beginning on October 1, 2005, physicians born in China or India now have as much as ten years to wait for permanent residence. Previously they waited three to four years. You will recall that the law requires J-1 waivered physicians to work for at least three years in a medically underserved area or at a VA hospital before even being eligible to file for a green card. In effect, they have a three year handicap other immigrants do not have. Now they are being told that they must wait many more years before obtaining permanent residence. During this time spouses may not be able to work and children may not be able to obtain the education for which they qualify.

We understand that this quota, employment-based second preference (EB2), will become backlogged for the entire world in a few months.

Given we already have a statute exempting some foreign medical graduates from the immigrant quotas, we request that you amend that statute, 8 USC Section 1101(a) (27)(H), to include J-1 waivered physicians and their dependents under the definition of special immigrants in that section.

We need to keep the physicians we have and to recruit more to serve our desperately underserved citizens. However, without your help, we may lose the J-1 physicians we have and be unable to recruit more. The J-1 physicians view this as yet another lengthy delay when they have already been delayed for a minimum of three years while serving America’s neediest citizens in rural underserved areas and serving America’s war veterans at Veterans hospitals. They will simply give up and not pursue waivers to work in underserved areas. Because of the great shortage of physicians nationwide, they have other options and we will lose them to urban and suburban areas without some relief from the long waiting lines.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans have received high quality medical care through the J-1 physician waiver programs over the past decade. Many of our citizens would either go without medical care or wait until a medical problem became critical and required emergency room treatment and hospital admission. With the J-1 physicians caring for thousands of our medically needy citizens, the quality and quantity of health care has greatly improved.

We understand there are provisions in the Budget Reconciliation legislation which would recapture unused employment based visa numbers and H-1B visas for the short term. We urge your support for these provisions. However, as this is only a short term cure, we urge you to exempt J-1 waivered physicians from the immigrant quotas under the special immigrant section of the law, which already contains an exemption for some physicians.

We understand the Judiciary Committee will have a markup on this legislation October 20th.

We thank you for your support for our efforts to bring physician care to the medically vulnerable and needy citizens of our State.

We would welcome the opportunity to speak with you about this either the next time you are in the District or in Washington. We are deeply committed to our mission of doing our part to make affordable health care available to all.

Thank you.

Sincerely yours,

Maybe this could be a starting point.