By The Iowa Statesman
Yesterday, U.S. Rep. Steve King (R-IA) offered a new immigration bill in the House of Representatives. The bill has a bit of the Golden Rule tucked into it.
HR 899, the Religious Worker Visa Reciprocity Act, would require the country of origin of certain special immigrant religious workers to extend reciprocal immigration treatment to nationals of the United States. King made the following statement after offering the bill, which has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee:
“In 1990 Congress created the R-1 non-immigrant visa for religious workers. This was created to help religious workers like priests, ministers, monks, nuns and other religious workers to come to the U.S. for up to three years to work for religious organizations.
“What started at a moderate growth rate for admissions has now skyrocketed. The most infamous of these acceptances was Sheik Omar Abdul-Rahman, the mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing.
“The United States has the most generous immigration policy in the world. However, the generosity is being repaid with fraud and abuse. This is a sensible opportunity to narrow the R-1 visa and make a stand for religious freedom.
“All U.S. religious workers should have the same access to a foreign country as that country’s religious workers have to the U.S. This is a sensible solution that both limits waste, fraud and abuse by lowering the number of considered petitions and promoting religious freedom.”
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