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CV NEWS FEED // Archbishop Jerome Listecki of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee is lobbying the federal government to change a visa policy that could remove immigrant priests from the country.
According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, religious workers on a temporary visa used to be permitted to apply for a green card, allowing permanent residency while on their visa, using the EB-4 category.
In March 2023, however, the federal government changed the EB-4 category to include tens of thousands of applications for abused and neglected minors from Central American countries. Now the application process is backlogged, and the priests are unlikely to receive a green card during their five-year residency in the U.S., which means they will have to return to their home countries and wait for a green card. The EB-4 category only hands out 10,000 green cards per year, and there are 150,000 people in line for the EB-4 category. About 70% of them are minors.
In the Archdiocese of Milwaukee alone, 25 priests and two seminarians will have to return to their home countries after their five-year visa expires.
In a letter to Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), and U.S. Reps. Scott Fitzgerald (R-Wis.), Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.), Gwen Moore (D-Wis.), and Bryan Steil (R-Wis.), Archbishop Listecki and four other Wisconsin bishops urged the government to add the children to a humanitarian line for green card applications rather than the employment-based EB-4 category.
The bishops explained that the new visa policy is forcing priests to leave their parishes for a year during a time of clergy shortage, leaving these parishes without their pastors, some of whom are able to converse in immigrant communities’ native languages. Under the new policy, these priests must wait in their home country for at least a year before re-applying for a work visa. Archbishop Listecki asked the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to change this waiting period from one year to a month. It can take up to 15 years for these priests to gain a green card.
Archbishop Listecki wrote, “We urgently seek your help in addressing these issues, not only for the sake of religious workers and their employers, but for the many American communities that rely upon them for a wide range of religious and social services.”
CatholicVote previously reported that the Diocese of Paterson, New Jersey, sued the U.S. Department of State over the visa change in August 2024.
