Appeals court clarifies rules
for permanent residency

By Julia Cheever, Bay City News Service

June 8, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) - A federal appeals court in San Francisco made it easier Wednesday for immigrant doctors who work in medically underserved areas of the United States to become permanent legal residents.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said several regulations enforced by the Department of Homeland Security violated a federal law because they imposed greater restrictions on the doctors than Congress intended.

The law, the Nursing Relief for Disadvantaged Areas Act of 1999, allows immigrant doctors who work in medically underserved areas to take an accelerated path toward becoming permanent legal residents.

Underserved areas are defined as either geographic areas or population groups experiencing a shortage of health professionals.

Among other provisions, the law allows immigrant doctors to become permanent legal residents after working in an underserved area for a total of five years.

A regulation originally set by the U.S. attorney general and later enforced by the Department of Homeland Security required that the doctors complete the five years of service within six years.

But a three-judge panel of the appeals court struck down that regulation, saying that Congress had set no time limit for doctors to reach the five-year total.

Circuit Judge Harry Pregerson wrote, "Congress clearly intended that no limitations period should be imposed on the aggregate medical practice requirement.''

The court also struck down a regulation that said doctors couldn't start counting their years of service until an immigrant visa had been approved. The approval can take several years.

The panel said Congress intended immigrant doctors to start counting time of service as soon as they began working in an underserved area.

The responsibility for establishing and enforcing regulations was given to the Department of Homeland Security after that agency was formed and given jurisdiction over immigration matters in 2002.

The ruling was made in a lawsuit filed in federal court in Los Angeles against the department by four doctors from Germany, Indonesia, Tanzania and India who worked in underserved areas and sought to become permanent residents.

One of the doctors, Stefan Schneider of Germany, worked at two AIDS clinics in California and the others worked in Worcester, Mass., and Richland, Wash., according to the court ruling.

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