Fourth preference (EB-4) workers consist of:

• Special Immigrants; and
• Religious Workers.

Special immigrants include certain foreign nationals who are US government employees that are abroad, certain international organization employees and certain Panama Canal Zone employees.

Religious workers are also included in the EB-4 category. Many religious workers enter the United States as nonimmigrants on a "R" nonimmigrant visa. In order to qualify for a religious worker under the EB-2 category, the religious worker must be one of the following:

• ministers of religion.
• professionals working in religious vocations or occupations.
• other workers in religious vocations or occupations.
  

Religious workers must work for qualified US nonprofit religious organizations or at nonprofit religious organizations affiliated with qualified religious denominations.

A foreign national requesting a green card under the EB-4 category files the Immigration and Naturalization Service's ("INS's") Form I-140 with the INS Service Center that has jurisdiction over the foreign national's place of work. The foreign national can include his/her spouse and dependents under 21 years old on his/her form I-140. For a listing of information required for an I-140 petition, click here. For information on the INS Service Centers, click here.

Once the I-140 petition is approved and an immigrant visa is available (i.e., there is no backlog of immigrant visas), the sponsoring family member will file an INS Form I-485 to request an adjustment of his/her relative's status from "nonimmigrant" status to "immigrant" status. For a list of information required for an employment-based I-485 application, click here.

There is an annual allocation of approximately 10,000 visa numbers in this category.