Religious Workforce Protection Act Waives 1-Year Exit Rule, Extends R-1 Visas Indefinitely for Workers in Green Card Backlogs

The Religious Workforce Protection Act is a targeted piece of legislation designed to provide immigration relief for religious workers—think ministers, religious educators, and others—who are stuck in the agonizingly long queue for permanent residency, or a green card.

Essentially, the bill aims to fix a bureaucratic headache that forces essential workers to leave the country or lose their status simply because the government can’t process their paperwork fast enough. It does this by tackling the time limits on their temporary visas, known as R-1 status, and easing restrictions on those who had to leave the country due to those limits.

Bypassing the Five-Year Clock

Normally, a religious worker on an R-1 visa is capped at five years in the U.S. After that, they have to leave. But if they’ve already filed for their green card under the special immigrant category (Section 203(b)(4)) and are only waiting because there aren't enough visas available that year (the numerical limitations), Section 2 of this Act offers a massive lifeline. It allows these workers to ask the Secretary of Homeland Security to extend their R-1 status repeatedly and indefinitely until their permanent residency application is processed. This is huge for continuity; it means a church or ministry won't suddenly lose its key staff member just because the visa line hasn't moved.

The Job Flexibility Tightrope

When you’re waiting years for a green card, having some flexibility in your job is critical. Section 3 deals with this, modifying the existing rules (Section 204(j)) that allow long-delayed applicants to change jobs while their application is pending. For religious workers, this section tightens the scope of who qualifies for this job flexibility. It removes one set of criteria and replaces it with references to two other specific categories (subsection (a)(1)(F) or subsection (a)(1)(G)(i)). While the intent is likely to streamline the process, this is a technical detail that matters: it means only those religious workers who fit into those newly referenced categories will retain their job flexibility benefit while waiting. If a religious worker doesn't fit the new, more specific criteria, they might find their job mobility suddenly restricted.

No Mandatory Year in Exile

Perhaps the most practical relief comes in Section 4, which addresses a rule that has been a major pain point for years. If an R-1 religious worker hit that five-year limit and had to leave the U.S., current regulations (8 CFR 214.2(r)(6)) usually force them to wait a full year outside the country before they can apply to come back on a similar visa. This Act waives that mandatory one-year foreign residence requirement for those specific workers who left solely because their five-year R-1 status expired. For those who were forced to uproot their lives and leave their ministry or community behind, this provision offers a clear path to return without the unnecessary delay, provided they are covered under the new extension provisions established in Section 2.