Continued Commitment to Foreign-Born Religious Workers Story 

In 2023, the U.S. government made a major change that impacted foreign-born religious workers: Due to increasing demand, they lowered the number of available permanent resident visas. 

Migual Naranjo, CLINIC’s director of Religious Immigration Services, puts this change in perspective: 

“Normally, if someone were to ask me, ‘How long is it going to take to get permanent residency?’ I would have said 18 to 20 months, start to finish. Now, the process of getting permanent residency, unfortunately, will take years, five, seven, 10 years. This was a shock, and now we have a backlog [of workers wanting permanent residency]. It’s caused a big disruption.” 

The reason for the change was a previous miscalculation by the government, in which they said they erroneously offered too many permanent residency visas and then had to lower the number to offset that previous error. 

Religious workers coming to the United States from other countries need an H1B visa, which allows them to stay for five years. During that time, if they want to establish permanent residency, they have previously been able to do so. But now, these workers on the H1B visa won’t be able to establish permanent residency before their visa runs out and they may have to depart the United States, leaving jobs and communities that have grown to depend on them. 

CLINIC helps foreign-born religious workers — such as priests, brothers, sisters, or clergy from other religious traditions — obtain these H1B visas and permanent residency, which enables them to work in the United States for religious orders and other Catholic or religious organizations in education, health care, and ministry. 

“There’s a wide range of services they provide once they are here in the United States,” says Graciela Mateo, managing attorney for Religious Immigration Services. “They serve a lot of rural areas where there is a need in the community for services, and they provide hope. They serve the homebound, they serve in hospitals, they serve as teachers and nurses.” 

Naranjo agrees: “They play vital roles in the community. Where the Church is growing in the United States, you look to immigrant communities. And having a religious worker who’s doing ministry from the same country as the community, it’s something they’re familiar with and comfortable with. Church leadership here in the United States recognizes how crucial it is to staff these workers in those areas. If we want to see the Church grow here in the United States, [we need] to provide those leaders in ministry and other roles.” 

CLINIC has been helping religious orders and organizations do this for years. When these changes occurred in 2023, the Religious Immigration Services staff was ready to help. 

Now that these foreign-born workers have to leave the United States, at least temporarily, rather than establish permanent residency, CLINIC is assisting the organizations in finding new workers to obtain visas and fill the vacant roles. And the Religious Immigration Services team is committed to advocacy that will raise awareness about the backlog and lead to an increase in the availability of permanent residency visas for these foreign-born religious workers. They’ve offered free webinars and created toolkits to educate religious organizations about how these changes could impact them, and they are also working with federal agencies to help them understand the essential nature of the jobs these religious workers do. 

“We have had opportunities to engage with the White House, the State Department, and the Department of Homeland Security,” Naranjo says. “Even though we have yet to see any fruits from our labor, I’m not discouraged. I’m hopeful that they are listening.”