Religious Worker Visa Extension Act of 2008

Floor Speech

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Madam Speaker, I rise to oppose H.R. 5570, a bill which will again reauthorize the Religious Worker Visa. The new majority apparently thinks we need to add ``ministry'' to the list of jobs that ``Americans won't do.'' Then again, with the level of hostility the Democrats have towards religion in America, there may come a time when we do have to import religious workers. Fortunately, we aren't to that point quite yet.

Regrettably, this program is far from comical. Just last year, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service attested to the fact that this visa had been ``compromised.'' The fraud rate is ``excessively high'' according to Emilio Gonzalez, head of USCIS. In fact, a DHS fraud-prevention task force found that a whopping 33 percent of the visas in this program were granted based on fraudulent information.

Even worse, rampant fraud and abuse has characterized this program, practically since its inception in 1990. A GAO report about the program back in 1999 found that, ``As a result of . . . fraud investigations, both [the State Department and the INS] have expressed concern that some individuals and organizations that sponsor religious workers may be exploiting this category to enable unqualified aliens to enter or stay in the United States illegally.''

Madam Speaker, some might point out that this program is not very large in the scope of the total number of visas. But I would remind them that we know the amount of damage a handful of determined enemies can inflict when they are allowed to abuse our visa system.

The last thing we want to do is perpetuate a program we know is fatally flawed, and continue a policy that just might be rolling out a welcome mat for some of the most radical imams in the Middle East. I urge a ``no'' vote on this bill. Let's close this giant loophole in our national security.

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