Religious Worker Permanent Residence Update

There is a statutory limit on the number of immigrant visas (permanent resident visas) that can be issued each fiscal year. On March 22, 2023, the Department of State and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) released the April 2023 Visa Bulletin showing updates to the immigrant visa, or permanent residence, quota limits to begin on April 1, 2023. The April 2023 Visa Bulletin showed a significant retrogression of priority dates for the Employment-Based 4th preference category (EB4). The EB4 category includes the religious worker permanent residence program. The updated priority date applicable to all countries became September 1, 2018. The May 2023 Visa Bulletin has been released, and it is also showing the same priority date limit as September 1, 2018.

This means only those religious workers who have an approved I-360 Special Immigrant petition with a priority date (the date the I-360 petition was filed) before September 1, 2018, will be permitted to submit and file an I-485 adjustment of status application. Many religious workers will not be able to file this application any time soon and will have to leave the U.S. before securing permanent residence. This update does not change the R-1 religious worker visa program, which permits a temporary stay of five years in the U.S.

Those with pending I-485 adjustment of status applications should continue to see processing of their cases, however, USCIS cannot approve the applications until the priority date of the applicant’s I-360 petition becomes current and is available. This update will result in additional delays in I-485 application processing. CLINIC is monitoring the situation and will provide more updates as they become available. For more information, please visit our website, www.cliniclegal.org.

Presenter #1: Miguel A. Naranjo, Director, Religious Immigration Services, CLINIC
Miguel is the Director of the Religious Immigration Services section of CLINIC. He leads a group of immigration attorneys who assist more than 170 archdioceses, dioceses and religious communities throughout the U.S. in brining international priests, brothers, sisters, novices, seminarians and other religious workers into the U.S. to serve the church. Naranjo joined CLINIC in 2006 and has been practicing immigration law since 2002. He is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

Presenter #2: Graciela I. Mateo, Senior Attorney, Religious Immigration Services, CLINIC
Ms. Mateo is the Senior Attorney of the Religious Immigration Services (RIS) section of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINC). She has been with CLINIC in its RIS section since 2017 practicing exclusively in the area of religious immigration law. Ms. Mateo has been practicing immigration law since 2018. She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and Charlotte School of Law.