US Immigration Admin Appeal: CoS caught applying for religious worker visa for an ABLE, Int employee
Out_Of_The_Dark
WAC 03 254 53269
April 275 2007
DISCUSSION: The Director, California Service Center, denied the
employment-based immigrant visa petition. The matter is now before the
Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) on appeal. The appeal will be
dismissed.
[..] The petitioner is the mother church of the Church of Scientology.
It seeks to classify the beneficiary as a special immigrant religious
worker pursuant to section 203(b)(4) of the Immigration and
Nationality Act (the Act), 8 U.S.C. § 1153(b)(4), to perform services
as a member of the Sea Organization (Sea Org), a religious order of
the Church of Scientology. The director determined that t):le
petitioner had not established that the beneficiary's position
qualifies as either a religious occupation or a religious vocation,
orthat the beneficiary had the requisite two years of continuous work
experience immediately preceding the filing date of the petition. The
director also questioned the nature of the job offer extended to the
beneficiary.[..]
[..]According to a booklet, Description ofthe Scientology Religion,
submitted by the petitioner, ABLE is responsible for "[t]he bulk of
the Church's secular social betterment programs," particularly four
programs: Narconon, Criminon, Applied Scholastics, and the Way to
Happiness Foundation, the last of these being described as "a program
for improving public morality based on a nonreligious moral code." .
As discussed above, the nature of the proposed employment is clearly
at issue in this decision. A related issue concerns the job offer
itself. 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(m)(4) requires the prospective employer to
set forth the proposed terms of employment. In denying the petition,
the director stated: "the record lacks evidence of any job offer from"
ABLE. Indeed, the petitioner's original submission did not offer any
indication that the beneficiary had been working at ABLE rather than
at the mother church. Nevertheless, the IRS Forms W-2 in the record
demonstrate that the beneficiary's actual employer in 2001 and 2002
was not the Church of Scientology or any affiliated religious
organization, but rather ABLE, which is a self-described secular
organization. The director also· observed: ''the duties of the
proffered position are clearly related to the social betterment
programs within" .
ABLE. Because the petitioner has not documented the terms of ABLE's
job offer, it is impossible to fmd that the petitioner has met its
burden of proof with regard to establishing the existence ofa
qualifying job offer.
The petitioner's submission on appeal makes no mention whatsoever
ofABLE or ofthe beneficiary's work there.This is a significant
omission, given that ABLE was, and apparently remains, the
beneficiary's actual employer. The petitioner offers no response to
the director's fmdings regarding the secular nature of ABLE's
functions andactivities. The petitioner focuses the entire appeal on
the issue ofthe beneficiary's Sea Org membership.
The beneficiary's membership in the Sea Org does not give her license
to work for an avowedly secular employer while claiming immigration
benefits as a religious worker. Pursuant to 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(m)(1),
the beneficiary must seek to work for a bona fide religious
denomination or a bona fide organization which is affiliated with the
religious denomination and is exempt from taxation under section 501(c)
(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986. 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(m)(2)
defines "bona fide organization which is affiliated with the religious
denomination" as means an organization which is closely associated
with the religious denomination
and which is exempt from taxation as described in section 501(c)(3) of
the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 as it relates to religious
organizations.
. ABLE is clearly connected in some way to the, Church of Scientology,
and ABLE is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. ABLE's tax
·exemption, however, does not derive from any religious character. The
petitioner's own submissions characterize ABLE as a "secular"
organization, and the IRS Forms W-2
http://www.exposescientology.com/visaresearch.html [..]
http://www.exposescientology.com/visadox/070425_Apr252007_03C1101.pdf