NJ diocese and priests sue State Department over visa policy change

The Diocese of Paterson and five priests are suing the government over policy changes to the EB-4 worker visa program which have resulted in enormous backlogs

The Diocese of Paterson, New Jersey, has filed suit against the federal government over changes to immigration regulations for religious workers which have created a massive backlog in the processing of priests’ applications and renewals. 

Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Courthouse in Newark, NJ. Image via New Jersey Historical Society.

The Paterson diocese filed the suit against the State Department in the U.S. District Court for New Jersey. The diocese was joined in the suit by five priests, one from Colombia and four from the Philippines, claiming that changes made to visa processing rules last year “directly threatens” the priests’ ability to carry out their religious ministry.

The change to the Immigration and Nationality Act, made in April of 2023, added special categories of juvenile migrants to the same immigration category as those with religious worker visas — essentially placing roughly 100,000 extra migrants in the category, while retaining the cap of 10,000 green cards to be issued per year for the category.

The change in policy, for which the government has not offered an explanation, has created a huge backlog in permanent residency applications by clergy and religious serving in American dioceses who entered the country on R-1 religious worker visas. 

Before the policy change, those priests could enter the country on an R-1 visa, begin ministry, and apply for permanent resident status with the reasonable expectation that they would have their green card usually within 18 months — before their five-year R-1 visa expired. 

Since the policy change and the resulting backlog, priests looking to convert their R-1 visas into a green card can expect to wait years — meaning they have to leave the country when their temporary visa expires and wait a year before they can return under a new R-1.

The issue is set to cause acute problems for many U.S. dioceses in the near future, as many of them rely on foreign-born priests to serve in parishes and other diocesan ministries. 

ALongside the diocese, the lawsuit lists as plaintiffs Fathers Manuel Ceballos, Regin Nico Dela Cruz Quintos, Joemin Kharlo Chong Parinas, Armando Diaz Vizcara Jr, and Joseph Anthony Aguila Mactal. Four of the priests’ visas expire next year, with Fr. Mactal’s expiring in 2026.

A spokesperson for the Diocese of Paterson told The Pillar that the diocese would not comment on pending litigation.

At the U.S. bishops’ conference plenary assembly in June, Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, chairman of the bishops’ committee on migration, told the bishops of the conference that, following a national survey of the reliance of U.S. dioceses on foreign born priests, “the most important takeaway is confirmation that this situation is only expected to worsen with time, if not addressed.”

“A priest applying for a green card today will be forced to wait an estimated 15 years before a resident visa becomes available to him,” Seitz said, while noting that the maximum time a priest can spend in the country under an R-1 before having to leave for at least a year is five years.

“This is simply not sustainable for our ministries, and it is devastating for parishes that will be left without a pastor when he is forced to depart the country at the end of his R-1 visa — this has already begun to happen in some of our dioceses.”

Calling the visa backlog a “top priority” for the committee on migration, Seitz said the bishops’ conference was committed to seeking relief from both the executive and legislative branches of government, but did not mention seeking judicial relief via lawsuits. 

“Ultimately only Congress can provide a solution that addresses the underlying visa backlog,” he said. “Our collective voice is critical in this moment and USCCB staff are eager to support in any way that they can.”

The Pillar asked the USCCB if the diocese or the individual priests had consulted with the conference’s migration committee prior to filing the suit but did not receive a response.

In a statement released to NorthJersey.com, the State Department acknowledged that the 2023 policy change had created “significantly longer worldwide waits” for religious worker green cards.

While the department recognized “the importance of religious ministers and workers as well as their U.S. employers who lead faith-based institutions,” the statement said, “only Congress has the ability to address the imbalance between the limited supply of EB-4 visas and the increasing demand.”

The increase in demand for the 10,000 annual permanent visas granted in the fourth category of employment-based immigrants in the U.S. — EB-4 — is the result of a policy change created in April last year and taking effect in May 2023, by which the government included “special immigrant juveniles” in the same immigrant category as people with religious worker visas — a category for which 10,000 green cards are made available each year. 

Under previous policy, those 10,000 greencards were allocated so that no more than 7% of them are given to immigrants from any particular country. However, as part of the policy change, federal immigration authorities removed the 7% cap for special immigrant juveniles from the “Northern Triangle” countries — El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. 

National Law Review explained in October last year that the federal government made the change after deciding that “applications for neglected or abused minors from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador had been in the wrong queue for nearly seven years. These applications were then added to the general queue alongside those of clergy members.”

The reasons for that federal decision are not clear, though it added an estimated 100,000 new applicants to the EB-4 pool. As a result, immigration officials are reportedly still processing 2019 applications.

According to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, as many as 38% of priests in recent U.S. ordination classes were born outside the United States. A large share of those priests could be impacted by the visa backlog.

Michael Scaperlanda, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, told The Pillar earlier this year that the backlog issue had already impacted the local Church there — nearly 25% of priests in the archdiocese come from other countries, Scaperlanda said.

Scaperlanda said that his archdiocese has benefited tremendously from the ministry of foreign-born priests, especially as the number of Hispanic immigrants grows in the region.

“But for that to continue, this has to get resolved. If they’re incardinated here, or we want them to be incardinated here, we don’t want to send them away for a year, or see them waiting indefinitely for permanent residency.”