Hindu temples and religious groups in the US are reeling from visa denials resulting in shortage of temple priests and stalled temple construction projects, a Hindu group has said in an affidavit seeking changes to US immigration rules.
In a submission to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), a legal team for the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) said Hindu priests, temple artisans and traditional temple architects are increasingly being denied the R-1 religious worker visa because of US regulations weighed in favour of Judeo-Christian terminology. The brief maintains that defining eligibility for R-1 status using terms such as liturgical workers, catechists, cantors, missionaries, and ritual slaughter supervisors... may potentially serve to discriminate against those organisations that differ from the practice, structure and function of the Judeo-Christian guidelines upon which the regulations are based. From what defines a Hindu religious occupation, to whether a temple shilpi (Hindu temple stone sculptor) belongs to a particular denomination, the current terminology proposed by the USCIS is absolutely foreign to the Hindu tradition, said Suhag Shukla, the foundations legal counsel. As religious worker visas become more difficult to obtain for Hindus, Hindu Americans must insist that their voice is heard in this process no less than the fundamental right to a free exercise of religion is at stake. Scores of Hindu temples have come up across the United States in recent years, including some of the biggest and grandest outside India, resulting in a steep hike in demand for the so-called R1 religious worker visas. Some 10,000 such visas were granted last year, but US officials, saying the visas are being misused, have sought to tighten regulations. The HAF says it supports US efforts to combat immigration fraud, but USCIS should alter current definitions and regulations to encompass the diversity Hindu traditions and Hindu religious occupations. The HAF brief also expresses concern that the visa application backlog combined with a proposed initial one-year limit on R-1 visas places a substantial administrative burden on community run Hindu temples throughout the US. There are an estimated 60 major Hindu temples across US and scores of smaller ones. Many of the temples are multi-million dollar structures that have been designed and built by shilpis flown in from India. Large temples such as Chicagos Venkateshwara Temple, Pittsburgs Balaji Temple and Flushing, New Yorks Mahavallabha Ganapati Temple, Flushing are now part of the Indian-American pilgrim circuit. Grander ones are being built all the time, especially by large well-funded organisations. Iskcon has embarked on a $61 Million Jagannath Cultural Project in Sedona, Arizona. Some time in the next few weeks, a grand Swaminarayan temple in Atlanta is scheduled to be inaugurated by Pramukh Swami Maharaj, head of the Gujarat-based Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swami-narayan Sanstha (BAPS). Such intense activity has greatly increased the demand for R-1 visas even as US immigration authorities have detected increasing irregularity, including false documentation and overstays. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/US_denies_visas_to_Hindu_priests_artisans/articleshow/2121339.cms http://tinyurl.com/3x8vog var RN = new String (Math.random()); var RNS = RN.substring (2,11); var b2 = ' '; if (doweshowbellyad==1) bellyad.innerHTML = b2; --------------------------------- Fussy? Opinionated? Impossible to please? Perfect. Join Yahoo!'s user panel and lay it on us.
