DHS cracks down on religious visas

You can’t trust anyone these days. A DHS fraud detection unit has found that 33 percent of those applying for entry to the United States under a religious worker waiver program were “unqualified” for the jobs for which they were applying — suggesting, the cynical suggest, that they were less interested in healing America’s spiritual needs and more interested in fulfilling their own temporal (or, perhaps, terroristic) desires. (Under the waiver program, which is intended to facilitate religious worship, applicants must have a sponsor and be qualified as a minister.) “We found that the program had been compromised and the fraud rate was excessively high,” said DHS’s Emilio Gonzalez by way of explaining a recent DHS decision to tighten up the program. One particular mosque, the agency noted, had filed more than 200 false applications — a fraud that was detected when agents noticed that not all supposed imams could work in a storefront basement.

Under DHS’s new rules, DHS officials will: excercise broader leeway to inspect religious organizations in order to assess their legitimacy; require more proof from applicants that they are trained and qualified for the job they’re being hired to do; and review W-2 forms or other proof of employment after one year on the job before extending the visa. Laila Al-Qatami of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee told USA Today she understands the new regulations, but hopes against hope that DHS officials will not be unduly biased against Muslims. “In particular with mosques,” she said, “we’ve found people are generally suspicious of them.”