In March 2023, the Biden administration made a sudden change in how the government processes green cards in the category that includes both abused minors and religious workers. Congress sets a quota of green cards available per year divided in categories, almost all based on types of employment or family relationships to U.S. citizens. Hundreds of thousands sought humanitarian green cards or asylum after illegally crossing into the U.S. since the mid-2010s, though the Trump administration recently cracked down on the program. That has created such a bottleneck that in April, only halfway through the current fiscal year, those green cards became unavailable. The need for foreign-born religious workers is acute, faith leaders sayFaith denominations from Buddhism to Judaism recruit foreign-born clergy who can minister to growing non-English-speaking congregations and often were educated at foreign institutions steeped in a religion’s history.