Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) recently demanded answers from the Bureau of Consular Affairs (CA) about a recent procedural change to green card rules. Hawley expressed concerns that the rule change would force foreign-born religious workers out of the United States while prioritizing illegal immigrants.
“It has come to my attention that a recent State Department rule created a massive backlog of employment-based, fourth preference category (EB-4) visas, which is adversely affecting faith-based employers in Missouri,” Hawley stated in a letter addressed to CA Assistant Secretary Rena Bitter.
The Missouri senator claimed the Biden administration is effectively deprioritizing Christian religious workers while instead focusing on providing visas to illegal immigrants. Hawley continued, demanding the bureau to fulfill its duty and serve his constituents.
“Concerningly, the Biden administration seems to have pushed Christian missionaries to the back of the visa line — and allowed illegal aliens to cut ahead of them,” he added. “It is incumbent upon your agency to provide relief to my constituents and religious organizations across the country who stand to be greatly harmed by this abrupt change in policy.”
“Almost instantly, the Department’s rule added tens of thousands of petitions to the waiting list for EB-4 visas and thus created a lengthy backlog for such visas,” Hawley wrote, slamming the newfound hurdles religious organizations face as “unacceptable.”
Hawley cited data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) showing 105,267 approved petitions awaiting approval for EB-4 visas as of March. Of these, 84,168 petitions were from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, while 866 were left for religious workers. Reportedly, the vast majority of the South American petitions were for “unaccompanied youth.”
Hawley defended the religious workers, asserting that they have become unfortunate “collateral damage” from Biden’s catering to illegal immigration.
“Sadly, it appears that religious workers are collateral damage in the Biden Administration’s push to expand ‘lawful pathways’ for individuals who crossed the southern border illegally,” the senator said. Hawley pressed the organization to understand “the specific actions your agency will take to expeditiously fix this situation.”
Apparently, Hawley’s letter was inspired by a predicament faced by Stephanie Reimer, who has worked with a nondenominational Christian nonprofit in Kansas City, Missouri for roughly six years. Reimer explained that she may be forced to leave America and return to Canada, where she could have to wait a decade. “If the waitlist is 11 years, then essentially America will be losing their ability to retain long-term missionaries, because we’re not able to get lawful permanent residency at the moment,” she said.
Reimer asserted that this rule change could completely force missionaries out of the country, claiming that many of the lawmakers she had raised the issue to weren’t aware of the rule change’s ramifications.
“They have no idea that this has been put into place,” she asserted. “So the executive branch of the government made this decision without warning. And the legislative branch of the government, as far as my conversations with them, don’t know about it. And when I’ve talked to them, they are very concerned.”
Featured image credit: By Francis Chung, E&E News – https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/columns/tony-messenger/messenger-with-perfect-staging-hawley-becomes-the-face-of-sedition/article_4d76f299-911b-510a-9155-4a2a4db37191.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=66470928
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