Locals asked to take action in support of bill for religious workers

By Tanya Connor
The Catholic Free Press

Local Catholics are being asked to join a national push to keep their foreign-born priests and religious here.

Monday’s “Diocesan Dispatch,” which is emailed to parishes around the diocese, urged the parish leaders to encourage parishioners this week to ask legislators to support a national bill. The bill aims to help religious workers stay in the United States while awaiting green cards that attest to the fact that they are lawful permanent residents in the U.S.

If the bill is not passed, and no other option is found, seven Worcester diocesan priests and a religious priest serving the diocese will need to leave the country for at least a year, because of changes in how immigration is handled, according to Father Hugo A. Cano.  

Father Cano, St. Paul Cathedral’s rector and diocesan director of Hispanic/Latino Ministry, is also visa administrator for international priests and seminarians in the diocese. To address the situations of the priests, who he declined to name, he is working with Atty. Nicholas C. Frank, religious immigration services staff attorney for Catholic Legal Immigration Network Incorporated (CLINIC).  

The problem is national.

In April a joint letter by Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, archbishop for Military Services and United States Conference of Catholic Bishops president, and Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, Texas, and chairman for the USCCB Committee on Migration was issued to Congress expressing strong support for the Religious Workforce Protection Act.

“An increasing number of priests, religious sisters and brothers, and others serving the Church throughout the United States will be forced to abandon their ministries and leave the country for a lengthy period of time under the terms of their Religious Worker Visa if policymakers do not act soon,” said the Worcester Diocesan Dispatch and the website, affiliated with the USCCB: votervoice.net/mobile/USCCB/home.  

This website provides information and helps in calling or writing to legislators.  

The website explains the situation this way: “Under current law, foreign-born religious workers are permitted to live and work in the United States temporarily through the temporary religious worker (R-1) visa. The R-1 visa is limited to five years, after which the religious worker must depart the United States for at least one year before possibly returning on a subsequent R-1 visa. Previously, religious workers of many different faiths legally present in the country on an R-1 visa could apply for and receive permanent residency within those five years. Unfortunately, there is now a significant backlog,” which would require them to wait more than a decade for permanent residency.

“The bipartisan Religious Workforce Protection Act (RWPA) (S. 1298/H.R. 2672), recently introduced in both chambers of Congress, would provide relief for religious workers in this situation and further the free exercise of religion in the United States for the benefit of all Americans.”  

The RWPA authorizes “the Department of Homeland Security to extend the R-1 visa for religious workers who have applied for adjustment of status until they can receive their green card” and would apply retroactively to those who have had to leave the United States.
If the RWPA is not passed, the first of the eight priests in the Worcester diocese who must exit the country would need to leave this July, and the last ones will have to depart in 2028, Father Cano said. (He said the diocese is also looking into the possibility of keeping them here by getting them H-1B visas, applied to specialty occupations.)  

If they must leave, they might serve in another country where priests are needed rather than return to their home countries, but no official agreement has been made yet, he said.  

Father Cano said the seven Worcester diocesan priests came into the United States not as immigrants, but as students who got F-1 status so they could go to a seminary, and the religious priest was ordained before coming here.  

He and Atty. Frank explained the process to The Catholic Free Press last fall as follows.
To keep the seminarians here after they were ordained, the diocese had to file an I-129 petition for a nonimmigrant worker, to request that the new priests’ status be changed from F-1 to R-1. R-1 status is valid for 2.5 years and can be extended for an additional 2.5 years.  
“Before applying for a new nonimmigrant R-1 visa (with a new five-year maximum stay), you must have been physically present outside the United States for the immediate previous year,” notes the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services website uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary-workers/r-1-nonimmigrant-religious-workers.
 
Previously, Worcester’s priests got lawful permanent residence in the U.S. before their first five years were over. But now the time frame for that process has been lengthened so much that many religious workers cannot do that.

There are over 150,000 people in line for a visa, of which about 10,000 are available each year, so an applicant will face a waiting period of about 15 years. About 70 percent of those in line in this category are special immigrant juveniles, and most of the rest are religious workers. If juveniles were put in a category appropriate for their situation, that would free up more space for religious workers.

– Visit worcesterdiocese.org/religious-visa to learn more and watch an interview with a local priest about being a religious worker.