{"id":558,"date":"2012-08-22T19:42:36","date_gmt":"2012-08-23T01:42:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.messersmithlaw.com\/?p=558"},"modified":"2026-08-15T23:19:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T05:19:14","slug":"religious-worker-portability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.messersmithlaw.com\/?p=558","title":{"rendered":"Religious Worker Portability"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>I have an approved religious worker visa and my green card is waiting for approvel.\u00a0I was wondering if I can switch to another church before I get the green card?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The answer is no if you still want to obtain the green card.\u00a0The law, specifically AC21, allows porting between employers where there is an approved I-140 and a pending I-485 but religious workers are not included in this legislation.\u00a0You will have to remain with you sponsoring employer until your I-485 is approved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have an approved religious worker visa and my green card is waiting for approvel.\u00a0I was wondering if I can switch to another church before I get the green card? The answer is no if you still want to obtain the green card.\u00a0The law, specifically AC21, allows porting between employers where there is an approved &#8230; <a title=\"Religious Worker Portability\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.messersmithlaw.com\/?p=558\" aria-label=\"Read more about Religious Worker Portability\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,11],"tags":[239,165],"class_list":["post-558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ac21","category-r-1-visa","tag-ac21","tag-r-1-visa"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Religious Worker Portability - US Immigration Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.messersmithlaw.com\/?p=558\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Religious Worker Portability - US Immigration Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I have an approved religious worker visa and my green card is waiting for approvel.\u00a0I was wondering if I can switch to another church before I get the green card? The answer is no if you still want to obtain the green card.\u00a0The law, specifically AC21, allows porting between employers where there is an approved ... 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