Idaho priests, religious workers get small immigration win – but hundreds still at risk

Foreign-born religious workers, who have been hoping for changes to the temporary visa process so they can establish permanent residency and serve their congregations, recently celebrated a small win.

As of Jan. 14, foreign religious workers whose temporary visas have expired no longer have to live outside the United States for one year before they can return, according to a decision by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The fight to change the immigration process for religious workers, including priests, nuns and rabbis, is not over yet.

Religious workers must still return to their home country to apply for a new temporary visa, and the backlog of applications for permanent residency continue to pile up.

A crowded path

to permanent residency

The intricacies of the immigration process impact a large number of local religious workers.

Idaho relies heavily on foreign-born Catholic priests to serve its parishioners, and more than a fourth are at risk of losing their legal immigration status within the next four years, according to a statement from the office of U.S. Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho.

Many Roman Catholic priests in central and Eastern Washington are also here on temporary visas that could expire soon, according to the Tri-City Herald.

The end goal for many religious leaders is permanent residency, but temporary visas have become more important in recent years as permanent residency becomes harder to obtain.

Right now, the biggest barrier to obtaining permanent residency is that it takes too long, according to Miguel Naranjo, director of Religions Immigration Services at the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc.

Religious workers are eligible for EB-4 visas, a category that is essentially a catch-all for a variety of subgroups and is capped at around 10,000 visas per year, according to a Congressional Research Service report.

In 2023, the U.S. Department of State changed how it processed EB-4 visas, driving up demand and leading to a backlog that will take years to slog through.

Prior to the backlog, religious workers could typically obtain green cards while they were in the United States on their temporary visas, reducing interruptions for congregations.

Following the changes, many religious workers have reportedly had to leave the United States and temporarily abandon their congregations once their temporary visas expired, according to the Congressional Research Service report.

Risch’s office said that the backlog for permanent residency is “costing many churches and other religious organizations the beloved religious workers their communities rely on.”

Religious workers usually come to the United States on an R-1 visa, which can allow people to stay in the United States for a total of five years.

As people’s R-1 visas near their due date, Naranjo said it’s rare that he gets to deliver happy news to clients about the status of their permanent residency. Instead, many religious workers are forced to leave the United States and hope for another temporary visa in order to continue serving their constituents.

Trump administration adds new hurdles

That’s not an easy process, either.

Naranjo said the Trump administration isn’t making it easy to get a visa. Common challenges that many people face are travel bans enforced on people from certain countries and increased scrutiny of people’s social media presence, Naranjo said.

As of last fall, people applying for R-1 visas are also required to conduct their visa interview in their country of nationality or residence, rather than a third-party country.

Interviewing in a third-party country often made the process easier, either due to proximity to the United States or friendliness to the visa applicant, according to the Global Sisters Report.

There is a small recent win, though.

Previously, religious workers were required to leave the United States for one year before they could return on another R-1 visa.

“That obviously created a big inconvenience, not only to the worker, but to the employer, to the community that that worker served,” Naranjo said.

Lawmakers push

for longer-term fix

On Jan. 16, the Department of Homeland Security eliminated the one-year abroad requirement.

“It’s not a perfect solution,” Narajano said. “The religious worker is still required to depart at the end of five years, but they don’t have to sit out a full year.”

Hopefully, with the rule change, religious workers will be able to see a new visa processed within weeks, Naranjo said.

“We work with a lot of religious workers whose time was ending,” he said. “We’re going to have to see how this all works out.”

Naranjo said he gives the Department of Homeland Security credit for removing the one year abroad requirement, but that more could be done.

In a perfect world, he said, religious workers shouldn’t have to leave the country at all in order to apply for a new visa.

Some local lawmakers agree.

Both Sen. Risch and Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, are cosponsoring the Religious Workforce Protection Act (S. 1298 or H.R. 2672 in the House of Representatives), which would allow the Department of Homeland Security to extend R-1 visas until a decision has been made regarding someone’s permanent citizenship.

“Idaho’s religious communities and their beloved clergy are central to our right to worship,” Risch said in a statement. “My Religious Workforce Protection Act ensures Idaho’s religious workers can stay in the U.S. and continue serving their congregations without interruptions while their visas are processed.”

This story was written in partnership with FāVS News, a nonprofit newsroom covering faith and values in the Inland Northwest.