America: The Jesuit Review yesterday published an extensive analysis of how the Trump Administration's
new immigration rules defining those who may become "public charges" will adversely impact foreign religious workers. It explains in part:
Men and women in religious orders—like the Dominicans, Jesuits, Franciscans or Carmelites, or Buddhist monks and others whose lives are devoted to their vocation—take vows of poverty. Their religious communities provide for their simple needs. But unlike previous “public charge” criteria that considered the income of sponsors, the new rules shift attention to the income of individual applicants, which is negligible for most members of religious orders....
Health care coverage for religious orders does not necessarily come through traditional insurance plans and may not meet D.H.S. standards for proof of insurance. For example, one cloistered community of nuns ... has an agreement with a Catholic hospital system to provide health care for its members. This is not a traditional insurance plan, but they are not receiving care at the government’s expense....
The government has suggested that this problem can be managed under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. However ... [t]he lengthy lawsuit process would make it impractical to use the R.F.R.A. as a way to help a foreign-born religious worker who is currently being denied entry due to the public charge rule.
