Date: 2008-04-15
Speaker: ZOE LOFGREN (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

I thank Mr. CONYERS. Mr. SMITH. and Mr. KING. Madam Speaker. I am proud to be the author of H.R. 5570. the Religious Worker Visa Extension Act of 2008. Immigrant religious workers add vitality and depth to communities of faith throughout America. They provide muchneeded help to people of all faiths. America is a great and diverse land. Our religious institutions. our churches. mosques. synagogues. temples. cathedrals. face daunting challenges today. They must reach out to more people from more countries and cultures than ever before. Religious workers serve these communities well and ably to the benefit of their communities and their many faiths. I have no doubt that religious communities in America will continue to have the need to find devoted people of faith to help them meet the needs of their members. 0l 1330 In Jewish community schools across the country. highly skilled religious instructors from Israel plant the fertile seeds of faith in our children. Mormon missionaries from around the world come to the U.S. to serve their community and deepen their faith. In Catholic dioceses around America. nuns from around the world provide needed community services and teach our children well. Muslim imams call their communities together to promote their faiths and a greater understanding of their beliefs. Protestant churches of every denomination benefit from the touches of religious workers in their diverse communities. The call to faithful service in the United States will continue to grow as this Nation becomes more diverse. Because of this growing need. I introduced this bill. It follows my efforts in years past from the 105th and 106th Congress to permanently reauthorize the special immigrant nonminister religious worker visa program. I called those bills the Mother Theresa Worker Act in honor of her great service which inspired us and benefited the world. I believed then as I believe now. that the special immigrant nonminister religious worker visa program represents an important and even critical piece of our immigration laws and that it should. like other religious worker programs. not sunset. After four successive reauthorizations of this program in 1994. 1997. 2000 and most recently in 2003. each without a single substantive change in the program. I again introduced a bill to permanently reauthorize the program. However. as part of the process of putting the bill through the regular order and subjecting it to the robust discussion inherent in the legislative process. I offered an amendment worked out with the minority in the subcommittee to significantly reduce the potential for fraud in the program. As mentioned by the chairman of the full committee. it requires DHS to. issue its regulations. It limits the reauthorization to 15 months. If the department fails to issue regulations. it requires the Inspector General to issue a report on the effectiveness of the regulations. And rather than the permanent extension. as I had sought. Mr. SMITH and I worked out a compromise of 7 years of the regulations that are authored. Finally. after additional discussion with the minority over the last several days. we have agreed that the Inspector Generals report should also contain an analysis of a random sample of nonminister special immigrant cases to determine whether they are still employed by the religious organization that petitipned for them. and if not. the reasons for their departure from such employment. I am confident that these steps will make the issue and concern of fraud unnecessary because we will eliminate that problem. I had an exit interview. if you will. with the director of the USCIS last week. Dr. Emilio Gonzalez is going back to his family in Florida. And he told me that with the initiation of site visits. which is something that should have happened long ago. the actual number of applications for this visa has dropped significantly. which is an interesting phenomenon. So I think that we are well underway in eliminating any problems with the program so that our country can enjoy the richness that religious workers bring to our communities. I thank the chairman for yielding to me.