Because of changes to federal immigration processes, thousands of priests, brothers, and religious sisters across the country could have to wait years before their visa applications can be processed — and in the meantime, they’ll need to leave the country. 

The Pillar spotlights a little-known wrinkle in immigration law that could hit some U.S. Catholic parishes very hard.

It begins with the story of Father Kenn Wandera, a priest recruited from Kenya to serve in the United States through Glenmary Home Missioners:

He’s now the pastor of a small rural parish in the Diocese of Knoxville, Tennessee. He loves the people, and he hopes they love him.

But Wandera is facing a problem. He came to the United States with a student visa. The plan was that once he was ordained, he’d obtain a religious worker visa, called an R-1. From there, he’d apply for permanent residency, a green card.

Wandera’s R-1 visa expires at the end of 2024. But because of a backlog in federal processing, there’s no way he’ll have his permanent residency application approved by then. That means while his permanent residency application waits for review, the priest will need to leave the country for at least a year, before he can come back on a new R-1 visa, and continue his wait.

Fr. Wandera told The Pillar that his parish congregation isn’t aware of his visa status — or the fact that he’ll likely need to leave the country at the end of 2024.

The priest said he hasn’t been sure how to tell his parishioners.

“I don’t think my people know any story around this. It’s not within me to explain to them that in a year’s time my visa will expire. I mean, people have no idea that I’m even on a religious worker visa. They just know me as a priest who left Kenya to come and serve them. It’s a very complicated question; I’m not even prepared to explain it to them.”

But the priest, and his congregation, are not alone.

Because of changes to federal immigration processes, thousands of priests, brothers, and religious sisters across the country are in the same boat — they came to the U.S. to stay, but it might be years before their visa applications can be processed — and in the meantime, they’ll need to leave the country.

And while diocesan and other Catholic leaders have been working for almost a year on the looming problem, few Catholics realize it’s coming — or that it could impact their local priests and religious sisters.

Read it all.  And learn why one immigration attorney involved in this is calling it “a train wreck.”

OSV News first reported on this issue in December and noted:

Of the U.S.’ foreign-born priests, a full 15% were ordained outside the U.S., explained Brandon Vaidyanathan, associate professor and chair of Catholic University’s Department of Sociology.

“If we assume, for instance, that foreign-ordained priests are largely on visas – that’s a large chunk of your 15%, given just the priest shortage, and the number of parish closures,” said Vaidyanathan. “A single priest is sometimes responsible for three to five parishes – so you can imagine with that situation, losing 10-15% percent of your priests, that becomes a serious crisis.”

Additionally, the church has a number of foreign-born priests who came to the U.S. as seminarians, were ordained in the U.S. and are also subject to visa renewals.

“Anecdotally, you can see in pretty much every diocese you go to, there’s a number of foreign-born priests that are there,” observed Vaidyanathan. “Maybe they’re visiting, or maybe they’re there on a longer-term basis – but the diocese can’t function without them.”