Religious Visa Workers Fear Program Overhaul

The loudest protests center on changes to definitions of key terms. Leading the charge are Hindu and Jain organizations, which contend that the proposed definition for religious occupation discriminates against non-Judeo-Christian traditions. The proposal lists examples such as cantors, choir directors and ritual slaughter supervisors, but not shilpis -- temple stonemasons.

Shilpis are trained for years, Hindu leaders say. They worship and invoke blessings into their tools each day and conduct ceremonies before laying stone. Expecting American Hindus to take up the profession is hopeless, Rajashekar said: Even priests in India now encourage their children to become doctors and engineers.

"It requires sacrifice," Rajashekar said.

Hindu leaders say they have strived to educate U.S. consular officials in India about the religious function of shilpis, cooks and temple architects.

Siva Subramanian, a founder of Sri Siva Vishnu, said he traveled to the consulate in Chennai in 1989 to explain why he needed religious visas for 20 shilpis. The visas were approved, and the masons came to Lanham to carve the ornate plaster pillars, deities and towers that adorn the temple. Reviewers in busy U.S. processing offices may not be so understanding, leaders say.

But complaints reach far beyond Hindu temples.

The nondenominational Bible Broadcasting Network, which transmits from Charlotte around the globe in eight languages, fears that the new definition for denomination -- which would require visa holders to work for employers "governed or administered under some form of common ecclesiastical government" -- would prompt reviewers to deny its foreign radio ministers and computer technicians, IT Manager Jeffrey Apthorp said.

Others worry about the exclusion of positions "primarily administrative in nature." The Akron, Pa.-based Mennonite Central Committee, a relief agency, prides itself on being a binational organization staffed by Canadians and Americans. Its Africa program coordinator is a Canadian with a religious worker visa.

"Is that a traditional religious function?" wondered Bruce R. McCrae, the committee's director of administration and resources. If not, he said, "that would really put a dent in our ability to be a binational organization."

The Los Angeles-based Church of Scientology Western United States, which brings in ministers to work with non-English-speaking parishioners, has also weighed in. The proposed requirement that ministers be "fully trained" is biased toward Christianity, assistant secretary Kenneth Long wrote in public comments to the immigration service.

"Scientology religious teachings and counseling are arranged in a gradient fashion, proceeding from relatively simple and straightforward truths to ever higher and more complex heights of spiritual understanding and awareness," Long wrote. "Scientology ministers and ministers-in-training never cease in their study of Scientology scriptures."

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints says the changes would end outright its sponsorship each year of about 1,500 volunteers for two-year missions. Although the proposal cites missionary work as a religious occupation, it requires that those holding religious occupations be paid. Nor would missionary work qualify as a religious vocation, which requires a "formal, lifetime commitment," church lawyers wrote in public comments.

The proposed regulations say that allowing those kinds of volunteer jobs to qualify for religious worker visas "opens the door to an unacceptable amount of fraud."

In Lanham, Rajashekar worries when he looks up to the temple's ceiling. The panels are dotted with rust-colored spots and streaks, stains from where cracks in the towers have let in rain. The resident shilpi can fix leaks for now. But if he leaves someday, the temple will need another person schooled in temple masonry, Rajashekar said.

"If something breaks down," he said, "even an Indian mason cannot do this work."