Watching Scientology lie to foreigners about ‘religious’ visas: A very personal account

[The Hollywood Celebrity Centre]

A thorough new piece in New York magazine about Scientology’s abuse of R-1 visas not only reminded us of research by RM Seibert for the Bunker that we published in 2016. It also inspired Sunny Pereira to send us this memory of what the R-1 visa abuse actually looked like at the Hollywood Celebrity Centre in the 1990s. We think you’ll find it very illuminating.

 
My soon-to-be husband ran into my office, a panicked look on his face. “My visa is expired!”

This was a huge no-no in the Sea Org. You cannot let your visa expire under any circumstances, because after that it becomes very difficult, even impossible, to get it fixed.

“Let me see it,” I said. I was on the Hollywood Celebrity Centre’s Perimeter Council, which, as one of its duties, kept track of employee visas, including which ones were coming close to expiring. His was not on the list. He was French/Portuguese, and he had come in on an “R-1” visa to the United States.

I had learned within the first few weeks of my post (which was in charge of staff training, among other things), that a large number of staff had come into the country on R-1 visas. They are visas that are reserved for “religious workers,” and so these people had come to this country with the promise that they would go into training to become Scientology auditors and other ministerial positions.

Many of them, including my soon-to-be husband, were asking me when that would begin (it was not my job to get them replaced on their assigned posts, which is why they were not in training). Over time, all of these staff gave up and realized it was a false promise. They had been recruited for the Sea Org and sent to the United States to put them to work as housekeepers, groundskeepers, laundry workers and other jobs that were unrelated to “religious” work.

I looked at his paperwork, and saw that it expired on 8/4. It was only late April, so we had time. I explained to him that it expired on 4 August.

“No!” He said. “It expired on 8 April!”

I explained to him that in the US, we abbreviated the date so that the month came before the day, unlike the rest of the civilized world.

“No!” He repeated. “My birthday is on the 9th of December which is 9/12, see it shows right here!”

Honey, your birthday is on the 12th of September.

“Oh.”

We had already filed an extension for him so he was in the system.

We met weekly for Perimeter Council. The members were myself, the ethics officer, security, the DSA (the local representative of OSA, the Office of Special Affairs, Scientology’s secret police and public relations wing) and any other executive that felt compelled to join for one reason or another. One small, but very important part of the meeting was going over the visa status of each staff member. We all knew the easiest out for any of them was to get married and go the green card route. Any staff member who had any chance of marrying an American was pushed to do so in order to get them legal. It made them no longer a problem to be discussed at our meeting.

But some were not getting married and had visas expiring. So other steps were taken to get them status as religious workers. In many of the cases, they needed to do something called “The Minister’s Course” to extend. This was where I came in, because it was my job to get them through courses.

The Minister’s Course was difficult, even for a native English speaker. It required reading the Bible and several other religious texts, as well as learning Scientology basics. It required practical steps such as running a Sunday Service, and performing a funeral, a wedding, and a baby-naming ceremony. There weren’t enough Sundays (or births or deaths, for that matter) to get all of them through the list of requirements to be “religious workers” in the eyes of the US Government. Especially with how last-minute we all were in the Sea Org. Everything was like that.

The workers with R-1 visas were, for the most part, upset about being misled when they were recruited. They understood that they would be learning Scientology and possibly even bringing it back to their country (especially in the cases of new areas where Scientology was just forming.) This was never under the jurisdiction or decision-making process of a recruiter at all. The recruiters said what they had to, and promised what they had to, in order to get people signed up. Once they were signed up, they were in on the billion-year commitment, just like the rest of us.

Some were able to use letting their visa expire to get out and go home, but then they were in bad standing with Scientology. Some didn’t care because they were honestly never Scientologists to begin with.

— Sunny Pereira

---

Thank you for reading today’s story here at Substack. For the full picture of what’s happening today in the world of Scientology, please join the conversation at tonyortega.org, where we’ve been reporting daily on David Miscavige’s cabal since 2012. There you’ll find additional stories, and our popular regular daily features:

Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history

Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea

Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time

Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology

Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain

Here’s the link to today’s post at tonyortega.org

And whatever you do, subscribe to this Substack so you get our breaking stories and daily features right to your email inbox every morning…

---

Now available: Bonus for our supporters

Episode 14 of the Underground Bunker podcast has been sent out to paid subscribers: We check in with Clearwater city councilman Mark Bunker about Scientology’s latest attempts to sabotage progress there. Meanwhile, we’ve made episodes 1 through 13 available to everyone, with such guests as Jesse Prince, Paulette Cooper, Michelle ‘Emma’ Ryan, Jefferson Hawkins, Patty Moher, Geoff Levin, Pete Griffiths, Sunny Pereira, Bruce Hines, Jeffrey Augustine, and Claire Headley. Go here to get the episodes!