Green card change jeopardizes thousands of US faith workers
7 min read
COLUMBIA HEIGHTS, Minn. — For more than two hours on a Sunday afternoon, the Rev. Gustavo Castillo led the Pentecostal congregation he’s been growing in a Minneapolis suburb through prayer, scriptures, rousing music and sometimes tearful testimonials.
But it all may end soon. A sudden procedural change in how the federal government processes green cards for foreign-born religious workers, together with historic highs in numbers of illegal border crossers, means that thousands of clergy like him are losing the ability to remain in this country.
The Rev. Gustavo Castillo leads congregation members in song and praise Sept. 24 at the Iglesia Pentecostal Unida Latinoamericana in Columbia Heights, Minn. A sudden change in how the U.S. government processes some green cards is threatening the Colombia-born pastor’s ability to stay in the country.
“We were right on the edge of becoming permanent residents, and boom, this changed,” Colombia-born Castillo said as his wife rocked their 7-month-old boy, a U.S. citizen by birth. “We have done everything correctly, from here onward we believe that God will work a miracle. We don’t have any other option.”
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To become permanent U.S. residents, which can eventually lead to citizenship, immigrants apply for green cards, generally through U.S. family members or employers. A limited number of green cards are available annually, set by Congress and separated into categories depending on the closeness of the family relationship or the skills needed in a job.
Citizens of countries with disproportionately high numbers of migrants are put in separate, often longer green card queues. Currently, the most backlogged category is for the married Mexican children of U.S. citizens — only applications filed before March 1998 are being processed.
For faith leaders, the line historically has been short enough to get a green card before their temporary work visas expired, attorneys say.
Yarleny Castillo soothes her 7-month-old son Sept. 24 during the worship service led by her husband, the Rev. Gustavo Castillo, at the Iglesia Pentecostal Unida Latinoamericana in Columbia Heights, Minn.
That changed in March. The State Department announced that for nearly seven years it had been placing in the wrong line tens of thousands of applications for neglected or abused minors from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, and would now start adding those to the general queue with the clergy. Since the mid-2010s, a surging number of youth from these countries have sought humanitarian green cards or asylum after illegally crossing into the U.S.
This change means that only applications filed before January 2019 are currently being processed, moving forward the Central American minors by a few months but giving clergy with expiring visas, like Castillo, no option but to leave their U.S. congregations behind.
“They’re doing everything they’re supposed to be doing and all of a sudden, they’re totally steamrolled,” said Matthew Curtis, an immigration attorney in New York City whose clients, like an Israeli rabbi and a South African music minister, are running out of time. “It’s like a bombshell on the system.”
Attorneys estimate so many people are now in the queue that the wait is at least a decade long, because only 10,000 of these green cards can be granted annually.
That’s likely to dissuade religious organizations from hiring foreign workers precisely when they’re most needed because of the growing demand for leaders of immigrant congregations who can speak languages other than English and understand other cultures.
“There’s a comfort to practice your religion in your native tongue, in someone close to your culture celebrating Mass,” said Olga Rojas, the Archdiocese of Chicago’s senior counsel for immigration. The U.S. Catholic Church has also turned to foreign priests to ease a shortage of local vocations.
Those from religious orders with vows of poverty, like Catholic nuns and Buddhist monks, are especially hard hit, because most other employment visa categories require employers to show they’re paying foreign workers prevailing wages. Since they’re getting no wages, they don’t qualify.
Across all faith traditions, there are few options for these workers to continue their U.S.-based ministry, attorneys say. At a minimum, they would need to go abroad for a year before being eligible for another temporary religious worker visa, and repeat that process, paying thousands in fees, throughout the decade — or for however long their green card application stays pending.
Migrants who crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico to the U.S. work their way through concertina wire Sept. 22 in Eagle Pass, Texas. In March, the U.S. government moved thousands of green card applications for vulnerable minors from Central America in the queue for religious workers.
“A big concern is that leaving is not really viable. The church will replace the pastor or shut down, it’s too much instability,” said Calleigh McRaith, Castillo’s attorney in Minnesota.
Martin Valko, an immigration attorney in Dallas whose clients include imams and Methodist pastors, said many rely on their faith to stay hopeful.
But realistic options are so few that the American Immigration Lawyers Association and faith leaders, like Chicago’s Catholic cardinal and coalitions of evangelical pastors, have lobbied the Biden administration and Congress to fix the problem.
Administrative solutions could include allowing religious workers to at least file for their green cards, so they can get temporary work authorization like those in other queues awaiting permanent residence.
The most effective and immediate fix would be for Congress to remove from this category the vulnerable minors’ applications, attorneys say. Despite being humanitarian, they make up the vast majority of the queue they share with religious workers, said Lance Conklin, a Maryland attorney who co-chairs the lawyer association’s religious workers group.
“They shouldn’t be pitted against each other in competition for visas,” said Matthew Soerens, who leads the Evangelical Immigration Table, a national immigrant advocacy organization.
Americas reeling as flow of migrants reaches historic levels
A migrant who crossed into the U.S. from Mexico is pulled under concertina wire along the Rio Grande river Sept. 21, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. Countries in the Americas are reeling as the flow of migrants reaches historic levels, but international “funds simply aren’t there” for humanitarian needs. Global crises — among them the war in Ukraine, conflict in Sudan, Morocco’s earthquake — have pulled global funds away, said Ugochi Daniels, deputy director of operations for the International Organization for Migration.
Migrants who crossed the Rio Grande river to the U.S. from Mexico seek direction from a guardsman Sept. 22, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. A growing number of countries like Panama and Costa Rica are pleading for international aid in handling the flood of migrants passing through the Americas.
Migrants who crossed the Rio Grande and entered the U.S. from Mexico head to be processed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection Sept. 23, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. As more than 7.2 million people have fled the South American nation’s economic and political turmoil, the mass migration has received pennies on the dollar in aid compared to other global migration crises like Syria’s.
A young girl watches as she and other migrants who crossed the Rio Grande and entered the U.S. from Mexico are lined up for processing by U.S. Customs and Border Protection Sept. 23, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. An emergency was declared when several thousand migrants crossed into Eagle Pass, Texas, over a few days.
Migrants sit atop a northbound freight train, in Irapuato, Mexico on Sept. 23, 2023.
Migrants sleep outside a train station as they wait for the arrival of a northbound freight train, in Irapuato, Mexico, on Sept. 22, 2023.
Migrants travel on a freight train, arriving in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Sept. 28, 2023. Despite violence from drug cartels and the dangers that come with riding atop the train cars, such freight trains — known collectively as “The Beast” — have long been used by migrants to travel north.
A migrant man watches as a northbound freight train pulls into Irapuato, Mexico, on Sept. 23, 2023.
Guardsmen encourage migrants waiting on a sandbar to turn around as they attempt cross the Rio Grande from Mexico into the U.S. on Sept. 23, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas.
Migrants walk beside a freight train they rode to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Sept. 28, 2023. So many migrants are climbing aboard trains that Mexico’s largest railway company said it was suspending 60 freight train runs because of safety concerns, citing a series of injuries and deaths.
Migrants travel on a freight train, arriving in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Sept. 28, 2023. A vast smuggling network can now get migrants from Venezuela to central Mexico in as little as just over two weeks, an odyssey that once could take months. Detentions along the U.S.-Mexico border soared 33% from June to July, according to U.S. government figures, reversing a plunge after new asylum restrictions were introduced in May.
Migrants travel on a freight train, arriving in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Sept. 28, 2023.
Migrants walk beside a freight train that brought them to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Sept. 28, 2023.
Migrants travel on a freight train, arriving in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Sept. 28, 2023.
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