The Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday announced a regulatory change that will allow foreign-born religious workers to re-enter the United States immediately after leaving to reset their temporary visas, removing a requirement that had forced clergy to remain abroad for a full year.
The rule change addresses a backlog created by a 2023 government decision that sharply extended green card wait times for thousands of pastors, priests, imams, and rabbis serving U.S. congregations — leaving many unable to remain in the country long enough to obtain permanent residency under the existing visa timeline.
What changed
Foreign-born clergy serving U.S. congregations typically enter on R-1 temporary religious worker visas, which carry a five-year maximum. The change DHS announced removes the prior requirement that R-1 holders remain outside the United States for a full year after hitting that cap. Workers will still need to depart the country at the five-year mark, DHS said, but may apply to re-enter immediately.
“It’s a huge deal,” said Lance Conklin, a Maryland immigration attorney who represents evangelical churches with R-1 visa holders. “It would potentially allow people not to disrupt the organization by having someone have to leave for a year, because that’s a major imposition now.”
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called the change a “truly significant step to support essential religious services in the United States.” Archbishop Paul Coakley, the USCCB president, and Bishop Brendan Cahill, chair of the USCCB committee on migration, expressed gratitude for the administration’s work. “The value of the Religious Worker Visa Program and our appreciation for the efforts undertaken to support it cannot be overstated,” they said in a joint statement.
Olga Rojas, immigration counsel for the Archdiocese of Chicago, said the change would help retain clergy who serve parishes and schools. “Hallelujah! We’re happy the administration made this change. It is helpful to us so we don’t have to lose valued religious workers that are contributing so much to our parishes and schools.”
How the backlog developed
The five-year R-1 visa had previously provided enough time for congregations to file for green cards under a special employment-based category designated for religious workers. That calculation collapsed in March 2023, when the State Department under President Joe Biden began adding migrant children with Special Immigrant Juvenile Status — minors who had been neglected or abused — to the same green card queue as the clergy.
Hundreds of thousands of those minors had sought humanitarian green cards or asylum after crossing into the United States since the mid-2010s. Adding them to the same processing line extended wait times so sharply that most religious workers on five-year R-1 visas could no longer obtain permanent residency before their visas expired. No exact figures are available, but it is estimated that thousands of religious workers are backlogged in the green card system or have been unable to apply, according to the Associated Press.
The U.S. Catholic Church has long relied on foreign-born clergy amid an ongoing priest shortage. Other traditions — including Buddhism and Pentecostal Christianity — also recruit international clergy to serve growing non-English-speaking congregations or to draw on specialized training from institutions with deep roots in those faiths.
Lawsuit and legislative backdrop
The Catholic Diocese of Paterson, New Jersey, and five of its affected priests filed suit against DHS, the Department of State, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in summer 2024, arguing the 2023 queue change would cause severe disruption to the lives and religious freedoms of the priests and the faithful they serve. The lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed in fall 2025 to allow for agency action and rulemaking, according to court documents.
“We’re getting the resolution we wanted, which is ultimately keeping the priests in the United States,” said Raymond Lahoud, the diocese’s attorney in that suit. “But the underlying issue is they still have to wait a decade for a green card. So the uncertainty continues until Congress will work together on comprehensive immigration reform.”
A bipartisan bill introduced in the Senate and House in spring 2025 called for a similar fix — extending religious workers’ visas for as long as their green card applications remain pending.
The DHS change loosens an immigration restriction at a time when the Trump administration has tightened many other immigration pathways. DHS framed the rule as a matter of protecting religious freedom and minimizing disruptions to faith-based communities. “We are taking the necessary steps to ensure religious organizations can continue delivering the services that Americans depend on,” the agency’s statement said.