Legal Question in Immigration Law in New York

Re: nursing sponsorship

As a general matter, registered professional nurses are heavily favored under American immigration laws. If you have a bachelor's degree from a U.S. nursing school, you can normally avoid temporary (non-immigrant) visa categories and move straight to permanent residence ("green card"). This way you can also avoid the labor certification process (the usual path to a green card through employment) because the Department of Labor has "precertified" professional nurses as a shortage occupation. In fact, regulations allow concurrent filing of the two stages of a green card application. With concurrent filing, an RN can actually gain unrestricted work authorization within a few months of beginning the green card process.

Since you mentioned taking NCLEX, I assume that you do not have a U.S. degree. However, immigration advantages for nurses also apply to foreign-trained RNs whether they reside in the United States or abroad so long as they passed the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX exam). This way you may be able to take advantage of the same "fast track" to work authorization and permanent residence available to RNs with U.S. education. Work authorization and green card would also be available for your spouse and children, if any.

I am not sure what you mean by being undocumented, however, but you if you overstayed your visa or entered the U.S. without inspection, you should be aware of "unlawful presence" consequences (3/10 year bar on admission to the U.S.). If you are studying in the U.S. on an F-1 visa, you are generally admitted D/S or for the duration of status (so long as you pursue the academic program you enrolled in when you obtained your student visa). Making sure you maintain legal immigration status and are not subject to these bars should be your first priority at this point as these can come back to haunt you in the future when you may otherwise be eligible for important immigration benefits.

Previously, NY did not require the SS# on the application form (the application form on the website still gives the applicant an option to leave the field blank and not to enter SS#) but if this is a new requirement, you may want to consider taking NCLEX in a different state or overseas (U.K., Hong Kong and Korea).

This reply is in the nature of general information, not legal advice and should not be relied on as such.