WASHINGTON/RIO DE JANEIRO — Vivian Barbosa lives in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and has worked as a registered nurse for more than 20 years. She is applying for a visa to work in the United States as a nurse. “There are many reasons why I want to leave, but the main one you’ll hear from most Brazilians is the lack of professional recognition and the undervaluation of nursing professionals in Brazil,” Barbosa told VOA. The United States is facing a growing shortage of registered nurses as the baby boomer generation ages, increasing the demand for health care. Many hospitals and nursing homes have recruited nurses from outside the U.S. to help fill vacancies estimated at nearly 200,000 a year, as burned-out nurses leave the field, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. And because of high demand, the State Department stopped taking applications for employment-based visas, known as EB-3, which included nurses and other skilled workers for the remainder of the fiscal year that ended in September. Each year, about 40,000 of these visas are available, a cap unchanged since the category’s creation in 1990. In its latest update, the U.S. government said the annual visa limits on EB-3 would reset with the fiscal year that began October 1. That would allow embassies and consulates to resume taking applications for these visas. The number of visas issued in October is not available. In September, no EB-3 visas were issued. In a statement, Patty Jeffrey, president of the American Association of International Healthcare, said…Read more