Religious Immigration Unit

The Religious Immigration Unit provides legal representation and legal services to foreign-born priests, religious brothers and sisters, and lay workers who qualify for religious worker visas and/or special immigrant status based upon their classification as religious workers. This includes assistance processing through the various U.S. consulates abroad and before the Citizenship and Immigration Service. Because DMRS is one of the few diocesan legal aid programs throughout the country, we represent religious workers from dioceses from across the country, not just from within the Diocese of El Paso. DMRS also provides assistance to non-Catholic religious organizations and institutions throughout the country. As the number of U.S.-born individuals entering into religious vocations declines, the importance of providing quality legal services to religious organizations within the United States becomes more and more evident each day. DMRS seeks to fill this need by providing quality low-cost legal services to religious organizations in need of foreign-born religious workers.