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Court Invalidates Rule On Green Card Applications By Foreign Religious Workers [Revised]

By Howard M. Friedman

In Ruiz-Diaz v. United States, (WD WA, March 23, 2009), a Washington federal district court invalidated a federal regulation (8 CFR 245.2) that makes it more difficult for foreign religious workers to obtain permanent residency status than various other foreign workers. The court concluded that the rule is "an unreasonable and impermissible construction of the governing statute." The rule was apparently adopted because the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service believes that there is a higher incidence of fraudulent applications among religious workers. An AP report explains:

Under the Department of Homeland Security's policy, religious workers who came to the U.S. on a typical five-year temporary visa were not allowed to file for permanent residency ? their green card ? until a separate visa petition by their employer had been approved. The problem was that it frequently took a long time for the government to approve those visa petitions ? and by the time it did, the religious workers had left the country because their temporary visas had expired....

Workers in other categories, such as aerospace and technology, are allowed to file for permanent residency before, not after, their employer's visa petition is approved, and can remain in the country while their application is pending....

(See prior related posting.)

Full post as published by Religion Clause on March 25, 2009 (boomark / email).