A green card change means US could lose thousands of faith leaders from abroad
COLUMBIA HEIGHTS, Minn. — For more than two hours on a Sunday afternoon, the Rev. Gustavo Castillo led the Pentecostal congregation in a Minneapolis suburb through prayer and tearful testimonials.
But it all may end soon. A procedural change in how the federal government processes green cards for foreign-born religious workers means thousands of clergy like him are losing the ability to remain in this country.
“We were right on the edge of becoming permanent residents, and boom, this changed,” Colombiaborn Castillo said as his wife rocked their 7-monthold boy, a U.S. citizen by birth. “We have done everything correctly, from here onward we believe that God will work a miracle. We don’t have any other option.”
To become permanent U.S. residents, which can eventually lead to citizenship, immigrants apply for green cards. A limited number of green cards are available annually, set by Congress and separated into categories depending on the closeness of the family relationship or the skills needed in a job.
Citizens of countries with disproportionately high numbers of migrants are put in separate, often longer green card queues.
For faith leaders, the line historically has been short enough to get a green card before their temporary work visas expired, attorneys said.
That changed in March. The State Department announced that for nearly seven years it had been placing in the wrong line tens of thousands of applications for minors from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, and would now start adding those to the general queue with the clergy.
That change means only applications filed before January 2019 are currently being processed, moving forward the Central American minors by a few months but giving clergy with expiring visas, like Castillo, no option but to leave their U.S. congregations behind.
“They’re doing everything (right) and all of a sudden, they’re ... steamrolled,” said Matthew Curtis, an immigration attorney in New York City. “It’s like a bombshell on the system.”
Attorneys estimate so many people are now in the queue that the wait is at least a decade long, because only 10,000 of these green cards can be granted annually.