[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 63 (Tuesday, April 8, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2464-S2466]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Religious Workforce Protection Act
Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I thank the majority leader for locking us
in, and I think we will complete our comments well on time for the
vote.
I am very pleased to be joined by my colleague Senator Collins as we
introduce a bill called the Religious Workforce Protection Act. Our
third cosponsor, Senator Risch, is chairing a Foreign Relations
Committee hearing right now but wanted me to comment that he is also a
cosponsor of the bill.
This bill deals with a problem that I first saw in my parish, that,
at the time, when I was talking to folks in my church about it, seemed
like a small local problem, but it turns out it is a big national
problem.
My church, Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, in Richmond, VA, was founded
as an immigrant church. It was heavily for Italian- and German-American
Catholics, right after World War I, who felt sort of looked askance
upon because of the war, and they wanted to have their own parish that
could be a haven for them. Now, a hundred-plus years later, my church
is still an immigrant church, but it is about a third Congolese.
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But in addition to the fact that many of our churches of all
denominations--synagogues and temples and gurdwaras and mosques--in the
country serve new American populations, it is also the case that many
of our religious workers in the United States are also immigrants.
Two of the last three priests in my parish were immigrants, one from
India and one from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and I began to
hear about a problem with the way our immigration laws work for
religious workers.
There is a visa called an R-1 visa that allows, upon the petitioning
of a church or a mosque or a synagogue, for a religious worker to come
and work for a congregation for a period of 5 years.
The R-1 visa lasts for 5 years. Often, during the course of that 5
years, the faith congregation decides, ``Here is somebody who is really
great; we would like to keep him''--or her--and they apply for an EB-4
visa, which is a more extended visa. And the idea would be you would
apply, and the application process would finish before your R-1 visa
expires.
Well, it turns out we have huge backlogs in processing these EB-4
visas. So many religious workers get to the end of their 5-year term,
and their EB-4 is pending--likely to be approved but not yet approved--
and they have to depart the country. They are required to go back home
and stay for at least a year before they come back.
There can also be some challenges for religious workers. If, say, one
starts working at St. Elizabeth's parish and gets moved to St. Paul's
Parish just a mile or two away, they have to restart the process
because it is a new employer even though they are essentially doing the
same thing.
So Senator Collins and I--and she will describe her own story that
she sees in her native Maine with the same topic. We started to talk
about this, and it turns out this is an issue in Catholic parishes, but
it is an issue much more broadly.
So what we have done is introduced a bill we call the Religious
Workforce Protection Act. It would allow someone in this R-1 category
to file the application for the EB-4, and if the 5-year R-1 period ends
before the EB-4 has been granted, this bill would give discretion--not
a mandate but discretion--to the Secretary of Homeland Security to
grant an extension of the R-1 visa for a worker who has applied for the
EB-4 and who fully qualifies, has no disqualifying factor that would
suggest that they would not be eligible for the EB-4.
It also allows a little more flexibility so that a religious worker
can move from one parish to the next or get a promotion from associate
pastor to pastor without restarting the application process as long as
they maintain continuous work as a religious worker, as the R-1 program
was designed for.
We think this is going to be a good fix for many of our religious
communities.
I am happy to say, before I yield the floor to Senator Collins, that
the support we have gained from religious communities nationally is
pretty notable. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the
National Association of Evangelicals, the U.S. Council of Muslim
Organizations, the Hindu American Foundation, the Immigration Committee
of Agudath Israel of America, and the Episcopal Church of America have
all weighed in because so many different faith congregations are seeing
this same challenge--the backlog in processing applications for R-1
religious workers to be able to convert their status to EB-4.
We think it is a basic, commonsensical provision, and giving the DHS
Secretary on a case-by-case basis the ability to review and then extend
someone's R-1 status while their EB-4 is processing seems like a way to
solve this problem for so many faith congregations all around the
United States.
With that, I am very, very pleased to be joined in this by my
colleague from Maine, and I would like to yield to Senator Collins.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I am pleased to join today with my friend
and colleague from Virginia Senator Kaine to introduce the Religious
Workforce Protection Act.
Our bill would allow foreign-born religious workers in the United
States to continue to perform essential work in their communities all
across the Nation, including the State of Maine.
I would also like to thank our friend and colleague Senator Jim
Risch, who joins us in introducing this important bill.
Like my colleague from Virginia, I, too, learned about this problem
from my local parish in Maine. In the summertime, I tend to attend
Catholic mass in either Lincoln or Howland, ME. Both parishes are
served by the same priest. The priest, until last year, came from
India--Father Tony. We all loved him. Unfortunately, when he went back
home, there was a change in his visa status, and he was unable to
return.
Our legislation would grant the Secretary of Homeland Security the
authority to extend the temporary R-1 status for a religious worker
past 5 years until he or she receives a decision on the permanent EB-4
visa application. In doing so, the bill would provide a solution to the
significant problems that religious organizations and workers are
experiencing with our current system.
Our bill would help religious workers of all faith traditions
continue their work providing services, such as acting as a chaplain at
a hospital, conducting worship services, and serving as religious
educators.
The issue religious employees have faced with our visa system have
evolved over time, but the result is the same: Religious organizations
are harmed, communities are hurt, and religious workers are unable to
pursue their missions.
In 2021, the severe backlog in the processing of religious workers'
visa petitions was worsened by the COVID pandemic. It forced many
religious employees who were already in the United States to leave the
communities that they were serving so well and for which they were so
essential or cease working altogether, such as a Catholic priest being
unable to perform mass for fear of violating immigration law. There
were also additional workers outside of the United States awaiting
entry, unable to serve in our religious communities.
Although the backlog did decrease as Embassies and consulates
reopened post-COVID, other issues have arisen.
Due to a change in the statutory interpretation made by the State
Department in 2023, many religious workers who are in the United States
on temporary R-1 visas are unable to receive decisions on permanent EB-
4 visa applications within the maximum 5-year duration of an R-1 visa.
In other words, their R-1 visa expires before they get a decision on
their EB-4 permanent visa. The result is that they have to leave our
country and the communities, parishes, mosques, synagogues, and
churches they are serving for at least 1 year before they can return.
In Maine, local communities have experienced this problem firsthand
and would be greatly helped by our legislation. Of the 50 Catholic
parishes in Maine, 35--more than half--benefit from the ministry of
international priests. Recently, three rural Maine communities--St.
Agatha, Bucksport, and Greenville--were left without any priests at all
for months. These priests were unable to work because their R-1 visas
expired before their EB-4 applications could be fully processed.
If this issue is not addressed, religious organizations in Maine and
across the Nation will continue to lose pastors, priests, rabbis, and
other religious workers who lead and support their congregations and
communities.
As I explained, this bill solves this problem by granting the
Secretary of Homeland Security the authority simply to extend the
temporary R-1 status past the 5 years until the religious worker
receives a decision on the permanent EB-4 visa application. This just
makes sense.
Senator Kaine and I have pressed the Departments of State and
Homeland Security to do everything they can to administratively address
this problem.
When I first learned of the issue in 2021, Senator Kaine and I wrote
to the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security to express our
concern about the long backlogs in processing religious worker visa
petitions.
In 2023 and 2024, we again wrote to the two Secretaries about the
change
[[Page S2466]]
in interpretation that had the effect of worsening the problem by
further lengthening the time it takes for applicants from most
countries to receive their employment-based visas.
Although some progress has been made as a result of our efforts, a
true and lasting fix requires an act of Congress.
I want to be clear that our bill is carefully tailored. It is
extremely narrow. It does not change any requirement or bars to
obtaining an employment-based visa. It does not allow entry for any
person who is not already permitted under the law to enter the United
States. Religious workers would continue to face the same vetting and
other requirements that are applicable to other noncitizens who are
seeking to work in our country.
Let me also emphasize that there is no doubt that our country has
faced an illegal immigration crisis, but that is not what we are
talking about here. We are talking about people who have lawfully
entered the United States under a religious worker visa, and we simply
provide a tailored, carefully crafted solution for those who are
lawfully present in our country and serving our churches, our parishes,
our synagogues--our religious organizations. They are of many different
faiths, and they have developed important ties to their communities.
As we have highlighted in a letter that we sent to the Secretaries of
State and Homeland Security, these employees provide basic necessities
to those in need. They care for and minister to the sick and dying in
hospitals. They work with adolescents and young adults to help them.
They counsel those who have suffered severe trauma and hardship. They
serve as educators and mentors, and they are critical as faith leaders.
Surely, this is one area where we should be able to come together as
Republicans and Democrats and do something worthwhile, something that
will have a real-world impact in communities across this country.
The broad support for this effort is shown by the many organizations
of different faiths that have endorsed our legislation.
I urge my colleagues to support our efforts so that we can allow much
needed religious workers to continue their ministry and their service
in communities all across America.
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