Fraud history leading to tougher visa path for foreign church workers

Published: 2007-05-04

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- It's likely to get a little harder to ensure that the Polish, Tanzanian, Ugandan and Peruvian priests who minister to the Catholic immigrants of western Massachusetts in their own languages get to stay in the United States. So too for Filipina nuns staffing hospitals in the Midwest, Mexican seminarians doing pastoral internships in Southwestern states, the Franciscan brother from Nigeria working with immigrant teens, the Irish priest teaching history and the lay catechist from Brazil. Allegations of fraud that have plagued the religious worker visa program since it was created in 1990 have prompted proposed changes that users of the visas worry will add unnecessary delays and costs. In the Diocese of Springfield, Mass., one of Father Bill Pomerleau's jobs is to handle the paperwork for eight foreign priests who work for the diocese. He helps with applications that the would-be employees file with U.S. consulates in their home countries and gathers the supporting documents that the federal office of Citizenship and Immigration Services, or CIS, requires to prove that there's a valid employment offer from a bona fide religious organization. If the immigrants decide they want to stay permanently, he helps them apply to change their temporary visas to permanent ones.

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