KAUAI, HAWAII, June 10, 2007: Hinduism Today has released at URL above a 17-page analysis of the proposed rule change to the religious worker visa. The executive summary, below, is followed in the analysis by an extensive discussion of the various issues involved. This rule change is quite drastic, and will definitely impact the use of the R-1 visa by Hindu temples, organizations and monastic orders. We urge Hindus in America to take an interest in this issue.
Executive Summary:
The Religious Worker visa is presently used by many Hindu organizations to bring priests and temple builders to the United States, in order to serve the needs of their members by providing traditional places of worship. Changes to this visa program have recently been proposed by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services. Some of the proposed changes would adversely affect the ability of Hindu organizations to adequately serve their members’ religious needs. The intent of the proposed changes is to combat a high fraud rate in this visa category. Most of the changes involve documenting the legitimacy of the sponsoring institution and the religious credentials of the workers, and pose little difficulty to Hindu organizations, though they may well increase the amount of processing time for the visa.
However, five areas are problematic: 1) the definition and examples of “religious occupation” do not encompass traditional Hindu occupations; 2) the documentation requirements for priests do not relate to the Hindu system of priest training; 3) the requirement that a religious worker be of the same “denomination” as the sponsoring organization does not reflect Hindu traditions; 4) the requirement of a “formal lifetime commitment” to qualify for the religious vocation category would exclude novitiate members of monastic orders; and 5) the required review after just one year in the US would place an onerous administrative burden on the religious organization, and the overloaded USCIS may not be able to process these reviews in a timely fashion. These issues are complex; to fully understand their impact requires a thorough study of the relevant documents and consultation with an immigration attorney. The Catholic Church and other religious institutions have concerns about the changes which overlap the Hindu concerns to some extent.
All of these areas cause what is called “excessive burden” on the practice of Hinduism. This is illegal under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. Proving to the satisfaction of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services that the changes are an excessive burden is up to the Hindu community. Hindu organizations and individuals must take action by sending comments on the changes to the USCIS before June 25, and protesting the rule changes to their federal political representatives.