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Floor Speech
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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 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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