Religious Worker Program Extended
Posted Oct 17, 2003

President George W. Bush signed the bill authorizing the extension of the Special Immigrant Religious Worker program into law on October 15, 2003. The special religious worker provisions that had expired on October 1, 2003, have now been extended for an additional five years until September 30, 2008.

We wrote about the sunset date of the special immigrant religious worker provisions in our August 15, 2003 article, Religious Worker Provisions 'Sunset'. The change in the law is effective as of October 1, 2003, even though it was signed after that date. This is significant for cases that were filed but had no ruling before the October 1, 2003 expiration. Those cases should continue to process without disruption.