Assignment America- Nurses
 

Hello all

I am new to this site. Apologies if this subject has been brought up before- I couldn't find anything doing a search.

My wife is a registered nurse, and has gone through the Assignment America nursing agency (part of Cross Country Travcorps).

They were meant to take care of the immigration process- green card and all. However, the whole thing has been a nightmare. It has taken about two years so far, with no end in sight (a problem getting social security numbers or something).

Has anyone else had such experiences?

Cheers,

Mark J

Yikes!
 

Hi Mark,

I am currently with O'Grady-Peyton, and awaiting approval of my green card. I joined them in Nov 2001 and took the NCLEX in June 2002 and applied for my I140 in August 2002. I've been waiting 5 months since the application went in and I am anticipating getting to the US by the summer. I am appalled that your wife has had to wait 2 years! That is the longest I have ever heard of. The whole process usually takes 1 and a half years but that also includes the studying for and taking of the NCLEX, long before the INS application. Whn did her application actually go in? Have Assignment America explained why this is taking so long? It sounds to me like she needs to get on the phone and bend some major ear to discover exactly what the position is. If there is a problem then they need to get their lawyers on to it right away. Demand answers!

Assignment America
 

Hi, cheers for the reply.

My wife passed her NCLEX in Feb 2002, taking it in Florida. We were expecting to go out in October last year, but then the reasons for the delays started getting a bit strange.

They reckon that a few nurses had been checked at random by the NRS, and needed to have social security numbers allocated to them before going out to the US (no- don't understand it either)

Apparently this has meant that the process has had to start from the beginning.

I am losing faith in them- their reasons for delays don't seem to make sense!

Cheers,

Mark

Re: Assignment America- Nurses
 

Don't blame the agency. This problem with social security numbers is a
well-known issue in the law itself. See
http://www.shusterman.com/toc-rn.html and
http://www.shusterman.com/pdf/rn122002.pdf

INS resolved this issue just a few weeks ago to some extent (see the
second link I gave above for details).

On Sun, 26 Jan 2003 13:54:10 +0000, mjones wrote:

    >
    > Hello all
    >
    > I am new to this site. Apologies if this subject has been brought up
    > before- I couldn't find anything doing a search.
    >
    > My wife is a registered nurse, and has gone through the Assignment
    > America nursing agency (part of Cross Country Travcorps).
    >
    > They were meant to take care of the immigration process- green card and
    > all. However, the whole thing has been a nightmare. It has taken about
    > two years so far, with no end in sight (a problem getting social
    > security numbers or something).
    >
    > Has anyone else had such experiences?
    >
    > Cheers,
    >
    > Mark J
    >
    > --
    > Posted via http://britishexpats.com

Re: Assignment America- Nurses
 

That's really useful.

Now at least I know what the delay has been!

Thanks for that,

Mark

Re: Assignment America- Nurses
 

Hi Mark,

we also went through the hell known as Assignment America. We followed through and came to the US and that was even worse. We have now broken our contract as have many who were on assignment in one particular hospital, are still in the US and enjoying life. Give us an apdate.

Re: Assignment America- Nurses
 

Hi there Deejae.

Thanks for the reply.

In September 2002, we started to believe that we would never get to the US. My wife had got her Nclex on the first attempt, we had sent back paperwork promptly etc, but Assignment America kept coming back with reasons for delays.

The final straw was when they said that it looked as if they could only get us over there if we went with the Georgia Board of Nursing. With the whole of the US to choose from, it looked as if they were forcing us to go to Georgia. I couldn't get a satisfactory reason why.

Anyway, just for the hell of it, Caroline applied for a job in a hospital in Australia. They offered to sponsor us for a two year visa.

In April, we moved to Perth, Australia, and a few months after that, we gained permanent residency. We will be eligible for citizenship in about 18 months.

We did this without going through an agency, and it was relatively pain free. Assignment America made us reimburse them for the Nclex material, which is fair enough, I suppose.

I regularly use the Australia and New Zealand forum on this site.

We are loving living in Australia, and would like to live here for another couple of years or so.

We would like to go to America in the near future. We will have to research whether it is possible. I am now very familiar with the requirements for working in Australia, but will have to refresh my memory on US requirements- and research this forum!

One thing that I am not sure about:

My wife is now 43. When we were applying for Australian residency, it would have been very difficult for people over 45. I don't know if this applies in America.

We will then have to decide whether there are any agencies out there that people on this forum would recommend.

Cheers,

Mike (I called myself Mark Jones in case Assignment America were reading this forum. I was a bit paranoid back then!)

Hi Mike, I posted on this thread a year ago! LOL. So much has changed since then. I am in America now...been here since December 2003. My agency conned me by telling me I could go to the East coast but then sending me to Arizona, but it's not all bad. It tiook me 2 years to get my green card so your wait was not unusual. They probably were trying to get you a Georgia license as that's where it's easiest to take NCLEX apparently. I have a Vermont license but I've never been to Vermont! I didn't like Assignment America because they told me I had to have been working in nursing for a year before I even applied and I had been out of nursing for a while. I din't bothe with them and went with OGP who took me on immediately. They have been less than savoury but they did get me a green card and I'm here at last. Just accept that getting here is not ideal, but once you're here it improves. Go with another agency and try again. You may ahve to start from the beginning again and wait another 2 years though.