EB-4 or EB-3 for religious worker green cards?

When a religious organization wants to sponsor someone for a green card, there are a couple of options available to them. What might initially seem like the most straightforward choice is through the fourth preference employment-based immigrant visa category, or “EB-4,” which has a sub-category specific for “Religious Workers.” With a petition directly aimed at permanent residency, one might assume this is the ideal pathway for a religious worker to obtain a green card.

However, due to a change in the interpretation of the law by the U.S. Department of State in April of 2023, substantial backlogs have developed in the EB-4 category, which may make it less of an attractive option than the more standard employment-sponsored pathway for permanent residency. In the November “visa bulletin,” we can see that the Department of State (and USCIS within the U.S.) is processing EB-4 religious worker petitions with a priority date (the date USCIS received the petition) of January 1, 2021. With temporary religious worker visas, or R-1s, having a maximum validity of five years, combined with some of the eligibility requirements for an EB-4 religious worker green card, many religious workers may find that their green card will not be processed before their R-1 visa expires, necessitating departure from the U.S. prior to obtaining permanent residency.

Conversely, in the same visa bulletin we see that the Department of State (and USCIS) is processing applications from the standard employment-based category, EB-3, with a priority date of November 15, 2022. Certainly, there is still a backlog and a wait, but that 22-month difference might be the deciding factor between someone being able to stay in the U.S. and continue their work, or having to leave the U.S.

There are certainly a large number of factors beyond this that go into selecting which category might fit best, including time, cost, and qualifications, but these differing priority dates are a key consideration when choosing the green card path that may work best for a religious worker in the United States.