LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Thirteen priests from outside the United States ministering in the Diocese of Little Rock have had to stop working, and in some cases have had to return home, because of federal delays in processing immigration paperwork.
Work at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has slowed, leading to uncertainty about the priests' future in Arkansas, as well as clergy and religious workers elsewhere.
"It's not just our diocese, and in fact several months ago we had a Zoom meeting with attorneys, civil attorneys throughout the country who work on religious immigration stuff to kind of brainstorm," said Deacon Matt Glover, diocesan chancellor for canonical affairs.
"It's not anything that any of our priests are doing wrong, or not doing quickly enough. It's a problem completely across the board," he told the Arkansas Catholic, newspaper of the Little Rock diocese.
"So you might have someone who's able to be here legally, who has legal status, but their employment authorization document has expired, even though we have timely filed to renew it," Deacon Glover said.
There are "multiple ways in which someone might fall out of (legal) status and have to return (home) or even if they're here, they wouldn't necessarily be authorized to work and it puts them in a real limbo," he said.
Since 2017, movement on the processing of immigration documents "to put it charitably, is hugely backlogged," he added.
Federal policy changes also have made it difficult and sometimes impossible for paperwork – even if filed on time or before deadlines – to be processed before a person's legal status runs out.
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