In the swirling debate over U.S. immigration policy, two recent stories—one rooted in the halls of Congress and the other unfolding in a Nebraska courtroom—have cast a spotlight on a pair of critical visa programs, each designed to serve the nation’s needs while upholding American values of compassion and justice. Both programs now grapple with mounting backlogs, rare but high-profile fraud, and the uncertainty of shifting political winds as the Trump administration pursues hardline immigration reforms.
On August 16, 2025, Catholic advocates and faith leaders rallied in Washington, D.C., urging the Trump administration to address the growing backlog of religious worker visa applications. Many immigrant priests and nuns enter the U.S. on R-1 non-immigrant religious worker visas, which allow for an initial 30-month stay and one renewal, totaling up to five years. During this period, they can apply for the employment-based EB-4 green card, enabling them to remain in the country to continue their ministry work without interruption. But as Erin Corcoran, executive director of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, told OSV News, the number of green cards issued each year falls far short of those eligible, creating a “huge backlog.”
This logjam isn’t just a bureaucratic headache—it threatens the very fabric of faith communities across the country. According to the National Study of Catholic Priests, released in 2022 by The Catholic University of America’s Catholic Project, nearly a quarter of priests serving in the U.S. are foreign-born, many of whom rely on these visas. When federal delays force them to leave, parishes can be left scrambling to fill vital roles.
In response, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced the Religious Workforce Protection Act in April 2025. The legislation, championed in the Senate by Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), and Jim Risch (R-Idaho), and in the House by Mike Carey (R-Ohio) and Richard Neal (D-Mass.), would allow religious workers with pending EB-4 applications to remain in the U.S. while awaiting permanent residency. The bill has drawn support from major Catholic organizations, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Jesuit Refugee Service/USA, and the Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC).
“We’re continuing our education efforts about the pressing need for the RWPA, and together with our interfaith partners, we’re encouraging grassroots supporters to raise this issue with their members of Congress while they are back in their states/districts during the August recess,” a USCCB spokesperson told OSV News. “We remain hopeful that Congress will have an opportunity to move the bill forward before the end of the year.”
For priests and nuns, the bill would also mean greater flexibility to move between parishes as diocesan needs shift. “For many religious workers, as part of your job or part of your vocation, you’re going to be moving parishes, right?” Corcoran explained. “And under the current framework, you can’t do that without jeopardizing your status.”
Yet, as Corcoran pointed out, the bill is “a very modest fix” that does not increase the number of visas granted. Historically, such incremental reforms have been swept into broader, often gridlocked, immigration packages. And with Congress on recess until early September, the bill’s fate remains uncertain.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has signaled both a willingness to address the issue and a broader commitment to tough immigration enforcement. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in an August 7 interview with EWTN’s “The World Over,” said the administration is working to “create its own standalone process” for religious workers, aiming to streamline their path and avoid conflation with other immigration categories. “We don’t want to read headlines that some Catholic Church had to close because it couldn’t get their priests here … some order closed because some nun couldn’t get here. So we’re not interested in that. That’s really not the aim here. It’s more caught up in the structure of it. We’ll have a plan to fix it. We’re working on it. We know it’s an issue, and we’re committed to fixing it,” Rubio said.
While faith leaders push for relief, another corner of the immigration system is under fire in Omaha, Nebraska, where a dramatic fraud case has cast a shadow over the U visa program. Designed to encourage immigrant victims of serious crimes to cooperate with law enforcement, the U visa offers protection and a path to legal status. But as reported by the Flatwater Free Press on August 16, 2025, the program’s integrity is under scrutiny after the exposure of a staged robbery intended to secure a visa.
In 2022, Ketankumar Chaudhari, an Omaha hotelier, paid an associate $1,000 to fake a robbery of his wife, Rashmi Samani, at her beauty salon. The plan unraveled, and Chaudhari was convicted of fraud. The case was part of a four-year federal investigation culminating in FBI raids of area hotels on August 12, 2025. Five defendants, including Chaudhari and Samani, now face charges ranging from sex and labor trafficking to money laundering.
Fraud cases like these have drawn the attention of federal officials. Matthew Tragesser, a spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, told the Flatwater Free Press that “the effectiveness is questionable given the gross mismanagement and corruption that’s allowed these programs to be hijacked by fraudsters and criminal aliens, their attorneys, and corrupt law enforcement.”
Yet, many immigration lawyers and advocates argue that such cases are rare and should not be weaponized to undermine a program that remains essential for protecting vulnerable victims. “It’s crime at so many different levels,” said retired ICE attorney Paul Stultz. “It’s immigration fraud. It’s fraud on the police … And it demeans other victims, too. It makes it harder for legitimate victims to get visas.”
Since its creation in 2000, the U visa program has been a lifeline for immigrant victims of crimes like rape, domestic violence, and abduction—provided they cooperate with law enforcement. Demand has soared: from about 7,000 applicants in 2009 to nearly 250,000 pending petitions as of March 2025. With only 10,000 visas available each year, wait times have ballooned to a decade or more. Since former President Donald Trump took office, even the wait for application receipts has stretched from weeks to over four months, according to Omaha lawyer Brian Blackford.
“The old phrase ‘Justice delayed is justice denied,’” Stultz lamented. “It’s not good for the government. It’s not good for law enforcement. It’s not good for the victims. It shouldn’t take that long.”
Advocates worry that the fraud spotlight and heightened enforcement will deter genuine victims from coming forward. “The problem is, they’re going to feel like they’re going to get repercussions, immigration-wise, because they helped,” said Mary Choate, director of the Center for Legal Immigration Assistance in Lincoln. Stephanie Gil, who works with crime victims in Lexington, Nebraska, said, “It has been a big fear around here. And we’ve heard it from other clients, too, that they’ve come and they said, ‘I didn’t reach out for help because he threatened me with immigration.’”
Despite the rare abuses, experts insist the system’s safeguards work. “So the idea that people just kind of run out and get a U visa, it’s not real,” said Christon MacTaggart, director of the Nebraska Coalition to End Sexual and Domestic Violence. “What we see are individuals who very much want to work and be a documented, contributing member of our communities.”
As Congress prepares to return and the Trump administration weighs its next moves, the fate of religious workers and immigrant crime victims hangs in the balance—caught between the necessity of reform, the reality of rare fraud, and the enduring hope for a system that serves both justice and mercy.
