The Freedom From Religion Foundation is raising concerns about a new Department of Homeland Security rule that grants preferential immigration treatment to religious workers.

This rule loosens an immigration restriction at a time when the Trump administration has tightened many other immigration pathways. The state/church watchdog warns that the policy improperly elevates religion above nonreligion and violates the principle of government neutrality. 

The interim final rule eliminates a longstanding requirement that R-1 religious workers reside outside the United States for one year after reaching the statutory five-year maximum stay before seeking readmission. DHS officials have explicitly justified the change as necessary to preserve religious organizations and their clergy, describing religious officials as “essential to the social and moral fabric of this country.”

FFRF is unafraid to point out the wrongheadedness of this perspective.

“Government agencies have no business singling out or privileging religious workers for special treatment,” says Annie Laurie Gaylor, FFRF co-president. “Immigration policy must be neutral and secular. When federal officials openly justify rule changes as a way to promote religion’s role in society, they cross a constitutional line.”

The rule is framed as an effort to reduce visa backlogs. But FFRF notes that the DHS has chosen to solve this problem exclusively for religious workers. In contrast, countless nonreligious employees, caregivers, educators, researchers and humanitarian professionals continue to face severe immigration delays without comparable accommodations.

“Visa backlogs do not uniquely burden religious workers,” Gaylor says. “Yet DHS has decided that the clergy deserve expedited relief. That is government favoritism toward religion — plain and simple.”

FFRF is particularly troubled by the overt religious rhetoric accompanying the rule’s announcement and its explicit connection to President Trump’s executive order establishing a White House Faith Office. 

“This rule is not just administrative housekeeping,” Gaylor adds. “It is part of a broader effort to entrench religion within government operations and to treat religious institutions as a preferred class.”

FFRF emphasizes that its objections are rooted in constitutional principles, not hostility toward immigrants. FFRF supports fair, humane and neutral immigration policies. By eliminating the foreign residency requirement only for religious workers, DHS entangles government with religion and signals that religious service is more valuable than secular service. “That message marginalizes the tens of millions of Americans who do not practice religion and undermines the foundational promise of equal treatment under the law,” Gaylor concludes.

FFRF is urging the DHS to reconsider the rule and invites the public to submit comments opposing religious favoritism during the 60-day comment period following the rule’s publication in the Federal Register.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With about 42,000 members, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.

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