Religious Workers (R)

I used to love doing religious worker visas: they were straightforward, required some intelligence to translate between the language of faith and the language of law, and they allowed me to learn about interesting and varied philosophies of life, and to help people who make a positive contribution to society.

However, the folks at Homeland Security have a different idea. They have decided that applications for religious workers are full of fraud. This means they will fight them every step of the way. Before deciding to take on this fight, it's important that everyone in the organization is willing to do what is necessary. If so, it's still worth it, by all means.

Ironically, DHS paranoia has recently led them to what I hope and pray may be a great breakthrough. They have recently decided to visit the "work site" of every religious worker to make sure no fraud is being committed.

At first I thought, This is wonderful! It means that they can see for themselves. They have a chance to speak with live human beings, to see what it is you do, to meet the other clergy and lay people who share your religious commitment and training. I hoped this policy would replace the out-of-control requests for evidence demanding that we prove your qualifications again and again. I had hope that once again I would be able to enjoy these cases like before. I suppose I was hoping for salvation by works.

I still hope this will eventually be the case. However, for the moment, applications are still waiting 8 months after the site visits, although the officers who visited stated clearly that they had recommended approval. It is possible that they are hoarding the cases until they have a large number to analyze, after which they will issue many decisions all at once. Something similar has happened a few times before in this program. The mass adjudications seem to take place shortly before the expiration of the non-minister category. This will happen next on October 1, 2008. Therefore, it is quite possible that they will hold cases until then. Please pray that this is not the case!

For the moment, we still have the option of doing temporary religious worker visas at the US Consulate, without the Department of Homeland Security being involved; There is a regulation coming that will eliminate this. Consular officers are employees of the Department of State. They are highly educated, and much more rational about following the law than the employees of DHS. Therefore, initial R-1s are still quite do-able.

If you are interested in discussing a religious worker petition please contact my Legal Assistant, Nela Lopez, to set up a meeting.