Extending Certain Immigration Programs

Floor Speech

EXTENDING CERTAIN IMMIGRATION PROGRAMS -- (House of Representatives - March 04, 2009)

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

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1127 extends two immigration programs, one for religious workers and one for doctors who serve in medically underserved areas, through the end of this fiscal year. If we do not extend these programs, they will sunset on March 6, 2009, just 3 days from today. These programs are too important to let expire.

The Special Immigrant Non-Minister Religious Worker Program allows religious workers to enter the United States to do important work. 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, instructors, and pastoral care providers. Considering the current economic crisis we are experiencing and the degree to which Americans are turning to religious organizations for help, these religious workers are needed now more than ever.

The other program is the so-called Conrad ``J Waiver,'' a critically important immigration program that helps medically underserved communities attract highly skilled physicians. This program is crucial to the States as it helps them attract doctors who have received their medical training in the United States to work in areas that desperately need doctors.

Its importance was demonstrated again a year and a half ago when a tornado utterly destroyed the town of Greensburg, Kansas. Without this program, that town would not have had any doctors. They were of tremendous help in keeping casualties to a minimum. We need to keep this program going so that States can attract medical talent and can keep the doors of small town clinics open.

Both of these programs have strong bipartisan support, and this bill would extend the programs through the end of the fiscal year when the issue can be revisited, hopefully, in a much broader context.

I commend committee Ranking Member LAMAR SMITH for his work in making this a bipartisan measure. I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California. Mr. Speaker, I would just urge, again, support for this measure. I would also like to include in the Record a letter dated today signed by a number of religious groups, including the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, the Mennonites, the National Association of Evangelicals, the U.S. Catholic Conference of Catholic Bishops and others outlaying the need for religious workers in this country and urging support of the bill.

March 4, 2009.

DEAR REPRESENTATIVE: We write to strongly urge the House of Representatives to pass H.R. 1127, legislation that would extend the Special Immigrant Non-Minister Religious Worker Visa Program through September 30, 2009. As you know, without congressional action, this important program is set to expire on March 6, 2009.

The Special Immigrant Non-Minister portion of the Religious Worker Visa Program became law in 1990. Originally enacted with a sunset provision, it has enjoyed broad, bipartisan support in Congress and has been reauthorized four times since then.

Under this important program, up to 5,000 visas each year are available for religious workers employed by a broad range of religious denominations and organizations. Religious communities that participate in the program have found these special visas vital to carrying out their work. The following are just a few examples of how large and small religious denominations and organizations use the visas to benefit their own communities and the larger society:

Catholic dioceses and Catholic institutes of religious men and women rely heavily upon religious sisters, brothers, and lay missionaries from abroad, who are sponsored and qualify for these permanent residency visas. Some fill a growing need in the Catholic Church for those called to religious vocations. Others provide critical services to local communities in areas including religious education, and care for vulnerable populations such as the elderly, immigrants, refugees, abused and neglected children, adolescents and families at risk.

Jewish congregations, particularly in remote areas with small Jewish communities, rely on rabbis, cantors, kosher butchers, Hebrew school teachers, and other religious workers who come from abroad through the religious worker program. Without them, many Jewish communities would be unable to sustain the institutions and practices that are essential to Jewish religious and communal life.

Smaller religious communities rely on the visa, as well. For example, the lifetime vocation of members of the Church Communities International, a religious communal order, includes a commitment to Christian brotherhood and faithful service through the provision of emergency relief, housing assistance, food distribution, education, medical care, counseling and mediation. To affect its ministries, the order depends upon the ability afforded by the program to relocate non-clergy religious members from its locations overseas.

Other religious denominations, such as the Methodist and Baptist churches, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the Lutheran Church, the Hindu faith, the Church of Scientology, and the Seventh Day Adventist Church, also rely on the visas to bring in non-minister religious workers, who, in addition to providing some of the same services mentioned above, also work in areas as diverse as teaching in church schools, temple workers, producing religious publications, sustaining prison ministries, and training health care professionals to provide religiously appropriate health care.

Because of the increasingly diverse ethnic makeup of our religious congregations and the nation as a whole, the special immigrant religious worker visa category is particularly important in addressing the specific pastoral and service-related needs of ethnic groups, including the Hispanic, Asian, and African communities. A special category for non-minister religious workers is also necessary because religious organizations face obstacles in using traditional employment immigration categories, which historically have not fit their unique situations.

We ask that you support H.R. 1127, which would extend this important program, prior to its expiration on March 6, 2009. Your support is vital for the continuation of the Non-Minister Special Immigrant Religious Worker Visa program and for the service of its beneficiaries on behalf of religious organizations and communities across the nation.

Thank you for your continuing support of the Religious Worker Visa Program and your assistance in achieving a permanent extension of this program.

Respectfully,
American Jewish Committee; Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc.; Church Communities International; Conference of Major Superiors of Men; Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society; Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service; Mennonite Central Committee, United States.
National Association of Evangelicals; National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahai of the United States; The Church of Scientology International; The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston, MA; United Methodist Church, General Board of Church and Society; World Relief; U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

I would just briefly note that as to the H-2B program, we are struggling mightily to see if we can reach consensus on that. We have efforts underway. I can make no guarantee that we will be successful, but there are active efforts underway to see if consensus can be reached.

As for the other issues raised, I would just like to note that Mr. Smith and I have worked very closely to make sure that this program, the Religious Workers Program, has integrity. And we now have 100 percent site visits for every church that applies, which we are advised informally by DHS, has really brought a much greater level of integrity to this system. And I think it's a product of the work that we did in the last Congress that helped us to be able to say that today.

So I urge support of this measure.

As for the reciprocity issue, I look forward to hearing the ranking member's proposals. I would just note, however, that because Russia is not very happy when we send evangelicals to their country, it doesn't mean that we should deny Russian Orthodox believers in the United States the assistance of Russian Orthodox member laypeople. I think that we'll work through these issues. This is an important step forward. And I urge its support.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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