Garfinkel Immigration’s Religious Worker Specialty Practice Group (SPG) centralizes the Firm’s decades of experience developing innovative legal solutions across the spectrum of the Religious Worker community, including for ministers, instructors, missionaries, and other essential personnel who support religious organizations.

The SPG team structure aligns the experience of our Partners, attorneys, and highly qualified paralegals, concentrating their skills to develop immigration practices and policies for churches, temples, mosques, and other employers of Religious Workers of all sizes, in the Carolinas, the Southeast region, and across the United States.

Some examples of services provided by our Religious Worker Specialty Practice Group include:
R-1 nonimmigrant religious worker visas

The R-1 visa is a nonimmigrant visa available to foreign nationals seeking to temporarily enter the United States to work as a minister or to perform a religious vocation or occupation. In order to be eligible for an R-1 religious worker visa, the foreign national must:

  • Be a member of a religious denomination that has a bona fide nonprofit religious organization in the U.S. for the immediate two-year period prior to filing the R-1 petition
  • Be applying to work for a nonprofit religious organization in the U.S. that is a 501(c)(3) religious organization exempt from taxation
  • Must be coming to the U.S. to work solely as a minister or in a religious vocation/occupation for at least 20 hours a week
  • Must be coming to the U.S. at the request of the R-1 petitioner and to work solely for that petitioner

The Garfinkel Religious Worker SPG team regularly partners with religious organizations to sponsor employers on R-1 Religious Worker Visas.

EB-4 Special Immigrant Religious Worker Visa

The most commonly used pathway for religious workers to petition for a green card is the EB-4 Special Immigrant Religious Worker Visa.

The sponsoring religious organization must file the Form I-360, Petition for Amerasian, Widow(er), or Special Immigrant, with USCIS, as well as provide evidence of tax-exempt status and its ability to financially employ the foreign national in a religious vocation/occupation or as a minister.

Applying in the EB-4 category allows the foreign national to bypass the PERM Labor Certification, which is often the longest and most costly part of the green card process, and requires a labor market test showing there are no minimally qualified able, available, and willing U.S. workers for the role. The foreign national’s spouse and dependent children (21 years of age or younger) can also receive green cards in the EB-4 category.

Garfinkel Immigration’s Religious Worker SPG monitors proposed legislation and the periodic sunset provisions of the non-minister special immigrant religious worker program, focusing on guiding clients throughout the green card process from start to finish, with the end goal of the foreign national receiving indefinite, full-time employment in the United States.

Alternative options and strategies

Recently, some religious workers have had to seek alternative options and strategies to remain in the U.S. after their maximum R-1 stay because of backlogs with the religious worker green card process.

For instance, our Religious Worker SPG has had success switching religious workers into the H-1B nonimmigrant category when they are running out of validity time on an R-1 religious worker visa while waiting for a green card to become available.

For immigrant visas, churches and other religious organizations could also consider sponsoring foreign national workers for green cards in either the EB-2 or EB-3 categories because of the retrogression and delays in the EB-4 Religious Workers category.

Garfinkel Immigration’s SPG partners with religious organizations and their employers to help develop the best strategy if their R-1 employees are approaching their max out date for employment authorization, and/or to evaluate alternatives for a green card to the EB-4 Religious Workers category, if necessary.

Further details and information

Garfinkel Immigration also assists religious workers as well as other employers in the following areas:

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“I want to express my sincere gratitude for your assistance in handling my case. I appreciate your prompt communication and the thoroughness with which you’ve reviewed my documents. Your clarity on the timeline and next steps has provided me with peace of mind. I feel confident knowing that my immigration forms will be managed effectively.”
- — Religious Worker client
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“Your guidance and support are truly appreciated. We are grateful for your continued assistance throughout this process and feel more confident and prepared because of your help.”
- — Religious Worker client