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Civil Law Considerations—Immigration Law | C-7
work at the
same location
where the benefi-
ciary will be employed and a summary of the
type of responsibilities of those employees.
Here, it is recommended that those diocesan
or eparchial personnel responsible for work-
ing on religious worker cases coordinate the
needed information with their respective
Office of Human Resources and with attor-
neys if they are involved. It is recommended
that they aggregate the positions as much
as possible and provide a very brief descrip-
tion of the aggregated positions. Once the
initial information is compiled, it should be
retained and updated as needed for future
attestations. Other aspects of the attesta-
tion (such as the number of religious workers
holding special immigrant or nonimmigrant
religious worker status, currently employed
or employed within the past five years by
the prospective employer’s organization, and
the number of special immigrant and non-
immigrant religious worker applications filed
by or on behalf of any religious workers for
employment by the prospective employer
in the past five years) may be administra-
tive burdens. This burden is especially true
for large dioceses or eparchies, for those that
did not centralize sponsorships for religious
workers, or for those that did not have a
tracking system in place. The need for this
information might be a catalyst for a greater
centralization of religious worker cases in a
given diocese or eparchy.
5. Compensation and Prior Employment/
Required Documentary Evidence
For special immigrant petitions, evidence
relating to compensation should include evi-
dence of how the petitioner intends to com-
pensate the religious worker. Compensation
may include salaried or non-salaried compen-
sation. If acquired in the United States, qual-
ifying prior experience during the two years
immediately preceding the petition or preced-
ing any acceptable break in the continuity of
the religious work must have been authorized
under US immigration law. The requirement
that past experience in the United States
must have been authorized under immigra-
tion law may create problems for those R
nonimmigrants that file special immigrant
petitions, especially if there were any viola-
tions during their previous presence in the
United States.
For those religious workers employed
in the United States during the two years
immediately preceding the filing of the
application, the rule divides the evidence of
prior employment into three classes: (1) for
those who received salaried compensation,
Internal Revenue Service (IRS) documenta-
tion that the person received a salary, such
as an IRS Form W-2 or certified copies of
income tax returns are required; (2) for those
who received non-salaried compensation, the
petitioner must submit IRS documentation of
the non-salaried compensation, if available;
and (3) for those who received no salary but
provided for his or her own support, including
support for any dependents, the petitioner
must show how support was maintained by
submitting with the petition additional doc-
uments such as audited financial statements,
financial institution records, brokerage
account statements, trust documents signed
by an attorney, or other evidence acceptable
to CIS.
6. Religious Organizations Affiliated with the
Catholic Church
For religious organizations affiliated with the
Catholic Church, such as Catholic schools,
hospitals, or religious institutes, immigra-
tion regulations require documentation that
establishes the religious nature and purpose of
such an organization. Documentation can be
a copy of the foundational instrument of the
organization that specifies the purposes of the
organization. Petitioners should also include
organizational literature, such as books, arti-
cles, brochures, calendars, flyers, and other
literature describing the religious purpose and
nature of the activities of the organization as
well as a religious denomination certifica-
tion. The religious organization must com-
plete, sign, and date a religious denomination
certification certifying that the petitioning
organization is affiliated with the religious
denomination. The certification is to be sub-
mitted by the petitioner and is included in