U.S. Citizenship And Immigration Services Issues Final Religious Worker Visa Rule

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has issued

a final rule that makes significant revisions to regulations

governing the special immigrant and nonimmigrant (R-1) religious

worker visa classification. Intended to reduce fraud in the

religious worker program, the final rule requires that employers

submit a formal petition for temporary religious workers, and

provides for "increased inspections, evaluations,

verifications, and compliance reviews of religious

organizations."

Petitioning and Attestation Requirements

The proposed rule required that all aliens seeking religious

worker status ? whether as special immigrants or

nonimmigrants ? have a sponsoring employer or

organization submit a petition on the aliens' behalf. The final

rule retains the petitioning requirement, but continues to allow an

alien seeking special immigrant religious worker status to submit a

petition (Form I-360) on his or her behalf. A nonimmigrant alien

seeking R 1 status, however, cannot self-petition and must have an

employer submit a petition (Form I 129) on his or her behalf. By

implementing the petition requirement, the USCIS seeks to preserve

the integrity of the program by denying petitions for fraud or

other ineligibility factors. It also allows the USCIS and

petitioning employer to respond to derogatory information revealed

by on-site inspections before a petition is ultimately denied.

In addition to filing the required form and associated fee, the

final rule also requires an authorized official of the petitioning

employer to attest to a number of factors including, but not

limited to: (i) that the prospective employer is a bona fide

non-profit religious organization or a religious organization which

is affiliated with the religious denomination and is exempt from

taxation; (ii) the number of members of the prospective

employer's organization, the number of aliens holding religious

worker status (both special immigrant and nonimmigrant) and the

number of petitions filed by the employer for such status within

the preceding five years; (iii) the complete package of salaries or

non salaried compensation being offered and a detailed description

of the alien's proposed daily duties; and (iv) that an alien

seeking special immigrant religious worker status will be employed

at least 35 hours per week and an alien seeking nonimmigrant

religious worker status will be employed for at least 20 hours per

week.

Period of Initial Admission and Extension of...