Special Immigrant Nonminister Religious Worker Program Act

Floor Speech

SPECIAL IMMIGRANT NONMINISTER RELIGIOUS WORKER PROGRAM ACT -- (House of Representatives - September 27, 2008)

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Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

S. 3606 reauthorizes the Special Immigrant Nonminister Religious Worker Program, which provides an avenue for nuns, monks and other religious workers to come to the United States to do their important work. If we do not act, this program will sunset in just 4 days.

On April 15 of this year, we passed H.R. 5570 to reauthorize the program for 7 years. As sent over from the Senate, the bill allows the program to expire on March 6, 2009. While this unfortunate limitation will require Congress to revisit this issue promptly next year, I believe the program is too important to let expire.

The 5,000 religious workers eligible for these visas each year are called to a vocation or are in traditional religious occupations with bona fide nonprofit religious organizations. They are missionaries, counselors, religious instructors, and other pastoral care providers.

There is a bipartisan consensus around this program. It has been extended four times since first enacted in 1990. We have worked with Mr. Smith to craft provisions to guard against potential fraud. The Senate bill incorporates those protections. I think this is a sound bill, and I hope that we're able to pass it tonight.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California. Mr. Speaker, I just want to comment briefly on the March 6 date.

It is my understanding that two Republican Senators requested dramatic changes to the E-Verify program extension that we were able to pass here. When they were unable to get it, the Senate--or I should say the other body--was able to agree on just an extension until March 6. Then the issue was that nothing else was going to go past March 6.

So I think it's interesting to note that, even though we oftentimes have very contentious disagreements on various immigration matters here in the House, we were able to come to an agreement to extend the E-Verify program for an extended period of time. They couldn't get that together in the Senate, so we're going to, indeed, have to revisit this as well as E-Verify early next year, and we will have to try and come to an agreement that is bipartisan and bicameral. Certainly, we need to approve this today so that religious workers can enrich the lives of our communities. With that, I urge its adoption.

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Mr. Speaker, S. 3606 is similar to a bill I authored, H.R. 5570, which passed the House on April 15 of this year.

Both bills would reauthorize the Special Immigrant Non-Minister Religious Worker Program, which allows non-minister religious workers to obtain special immigrant status in the U.S. so that they may do the work required of their faith.

The program is vitally important to religious organizations as it provides in many!instances the only avenue for nuns, monks, and other people of faith to come to the United States to fill a vocation or other traditional religious occupation. Those who use the visas come over to serve as missionaries, counselors, translators, religious instructors, cantors, and other pastoral care providers.

Unfortunately, the program is currently set to expire in just a few days.

H.R. 5570, the bill I authored, would have extended the program for several years. But S. 3606, as sent back from the Senate, would extend the program only through March 6, 2009. Although I strongly would have preferred to extend the program for longer, the program is too important to let expire. We should extend the program today to allow us the additional time we need to work out a longer extension.

I also note tat the program was first enacted in 1990 and that Congress has extended it four times, most recently in 2003. Working with Lamar Smith, the Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee, we made changes to the program for the first time to address potential fraudulent uses of the program. The Senate bill includes those protections.

I urge my colleagues to support this important bipartisan legislation.

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