DHS removes one-year foreign residency requirement for R-1 religious workers

R-1 is a temporary (nonimmigrant) status for foreign nationals who come to the United States to work at least part‑time (20+ hours per week) as ministers or in a religious vocation or occupation for a qualifying U.S. nonprofit religious organization (or affiliated nonprofit). To qualify, the worker must:

• Be coming only to perform religious work (not secular work);
• Work for a U.S. nonprofit religious organization, an organization covered by a religious group tax exemption, or a nonprofit affiliated with a religious denomination; and
• Have been a member of the same religious denomination that has a bona fide nonprofit religious organization in the U.S. for at least two years before the petition is filed. The U.S. employer must file Form I‑129 (with R‑1 supplement) to petition for the worker.

EB‑4 is the fourth employment‑based immigrant visa category for certain "special immigrants". It includes several subgroups such as religious workers, Special Immigrant Juveniles, certain U.S. government employees abroad, some military-related cases, and others. Religious workers use the EB‑4 category to obtain permanent residency (a green card). A qualifying religious organization files Form I‑360 for the worker as a "special immigrant religious worker," and once an EB‑4 visa number is available (per the Visa Bulletin), the worker can apply for an immigrant visa or adjust status to a green card. The EB‑4 backlog and visa limits are what have been forcing many R‑1 religious workers to leave when their temporary time runs out.

An "interim final rule" is a regulation that an agency puts into effect immediately (or on a set effective date) without first going through the usual public comment period on a proposed rule. The agency then takes public comments after the rule is already in force and can later revise or finalize it. By contrast, the normal federal rulemaking process (notice‑and‑comment under the Administrative Procedure Act) usually requires:

1. Publishing a proposed rule in the Federal Register;
2. Allowing the public a comment period; and
3. Considering those comments before issuing a final rule. Agencies may use an interim final rule when they claim “good cause” to skip the prior notice‑and‑comment step (for example, to address an urgent problem), while still collecting comments afterward.

By statute and regulation, an R‑1 religious worker can be granted:

• Up to 30 months of initial R‑1 status, plus
• Extensions up to another 30 months, for a maximum total of 5 years (60 months) of physical presence in the U.S. in R‑1 status. Under prior rules, after reaching 5 years the worker could not get more R‑1 time or be readmitted in R‑1 unless they had spent one continuous year abroad (with narrow exceptions). The new DHS interim final rule eliminates that one‑year foreign residency requirement but does not change the 5‑year maximum R‑1 limit itself. Workers must still depart when they reach 5 years; the rule only allows them to seek new R‑1 admission sooner instead of waiting a full year abroad.

The rule does not directly change eligibility for permanent residency, which is still obtained through an EB‑4 “special immigrant religious worker” petition (Form I‑360) and then an immigrant visa or adjustment of status when a visa number is available. However, removing the one‑year foreign residency requirement after 5 years in R‑1 can indirectly help because:

• Religious workers who hit the 5‑year R‑1 limit but are stuck in long EB‑4 backlogs can now leave the U.S. and return in R‑1 status sooner, instead of waiting a full year abroad.
• This allows them to maintain continuity of service with the same or similar religious employer while they wait for an EB‑4 priority date to become current, instead of leaving U.S. congregations without clergy or religious staff. So the green‑card path (EB‑4 process and backlogs) is unchanged, but the new rule reduces gaps in lawful status and employment for religious workers while they are waiting in the EB‑4 line.

In 2023 the Department of State changed how it interprets and applies the immigrant‑visa allocation rules for the EB‑4 category. For years, EB‑4 demand from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras was handled with a separate, prorated EB‑4 cutoff date just for those three countries. In March–April 2023, State announced that this interpretation was legally incorrect and that EB‑4 demand from those countries had to be combined with demand from the rest of the world. When the demand from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras was merged back into the worldwide EB‑4 line, the EB‑4 final action date for most countries suddenly retrogressed by almost four years (from February 1, 2022 to September 1, 2018 in the April 2023 Visa Bulletin). Because the total number of EB‑4 visas per year is small and there were already many pending cases (most being Special Immigrant Juveniles, plus many religious workers), this reinterpretation created very long wait times—on the order of a decade or more—for many EB‑4 applicants, including religious workers.

According to DHS and USCIS, the interim final rule is effective immediately, and USCIS "invites written comments and related materials submitted within 60 days of the rule’s publication in the Federal Register." However, the DHS and USCIS news releases do not specify the Federal Register docket number, publication date, or the exact methods (such as Regulations.gov docket link, mailing address, or email) for submitting comments. Without access to the actual Federal Register notice, the only information available is that comments must be submitted within 60 days after the rule is published in the Federal Register. The precise deadline date and filing channels therefore cannot be determined from the article and sources available here.