Tom Tancredo: “I rise to oppose H.R. 5570, a bill which will again reauthorize the Religious Worker Visa. The new majority apparently…”

“I rise to oppose H.R. 5570, a bill which will again reauthorize the Religious Worker Visa. The new majority apparently thinks we need to add ``ministry'' to the list of jobs that ``Americans won't do.'' Then again, with the level of hostility the Democrats have towards religion in America, there may come a time when we do have to import religious workers. Fortunately, we aren't to that point quite yet. Regrettably, this program is far from comical. Just last year, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service attested to the fact that this visa had been ``compromised.'' The fraud rate is ``excessively high'' according to Emilio Gonzalez, head of USCIS. In fact, a DHS fraud-prevention task force found that a whopping 33 percent of the visas in this program were granted based on fraudulent information. Even worse, rampant fraud and abuse has characterized this program, practically since its inception in 1990. A GAO report about the program back in 1999 found that, ``As a result of . . . fraud investigations, both [the State Department and the INS] have expressed concern that some individuals and organizations that sponsor religious workers may be exploiting this category to enable unqualified aliens to enter or stay in the United States illegally.''”