Last December, immigration agents made an unannounced visit to a Korean church in Queens, where five Korean school teachers in the country with “religious worker visas” were arrested—one was later released. The four, who were illegally employed, posted $10,000 bail each and were released, pending a deportation hearing. One of the teachers released said, “In our church, 20 teachers have already applied for religious worker visas. We are worried about the number of illegal or incorrect applications.”

Recently, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Task Force stepped up their investigations of Korean churches. In order to qualify for a religious worker visa that makes you eligible for permanent residence in the United States, a worker must be a member of the religious entity longer than two years, and must work directly with the church that has sponsored them. They are also required to have at least a B.A. from their country of origin, or from a U.S. university.

USCIS visited several churches in central Queens in order to check application forms against employment logs, to see whether the persons are really working there and if the pastor’s signature is valid or not. Many cases of fraud are emerging and the churches are seriously worried about the illegal employment of church workers.

In one such church, Mr. P. said, “The raids proved that there were false signatures, and that teachers listed were not even working in our church. Perhaps a pastor who had visited our church asked for teachers for his church, and simply used our church name. Otherwise, we cannot explain this situation.”

Pastor K. in central Queens said, “I know that some pastors reluctantly signed visa application forms, at the insistence of others. Before Sept.11, 2001, religious worker visas were not under such close scrutiny, and the problems did not really emerge. After the attacks and with the increased enforcement, there are more investigations and we are able to see the dimension of the problem.” In the past, immigration agents did not give such close scrutiny to religious visa workers. However, the high number of small churches asking for religious worker visas aroused suspicion and brought on the raid.

Persons involved in the Korean church have called the problem a time bomb. In some cases, pastors acting like visa brokers have asked churches in America to provide cover addresses, or to hire employees who do not have proper qualifications to work, in order that they might receive church worker visas.

According to several Korean pastors in Queens, Pastor C. is acting like a visa broker. He is reported to have requested area pastors to come to the aid of religious visa green-card applicants known to him, to assist them in obtaining visas by providing signatures and other information for the applications. He sometimes prepared false application forms, embellishing or offering incorrect biographical information.

Pastor K. said, “Some pastors offered their signatures to Pastor C. because they know him. If immigration checks the application forms, they will see the discrepancies in the signatures. As pastors, we are struggling with this widespread problem.”

Many people think that religious immigration is the easiest category for visas, and push pastors to receive signatures and letters. Immigration lawyer Nam Su-Eun said, “When people apply for a religious worker visa, they must make certain that the application is properly done. The applicant must have proper qualifications for the job, but the sponsor must also be qualified to hire and pay the applicant.”