Two Trinidad teenagers who had worked for a year to finance a church-related trip to North Carolina were denied a visa by the United States Immigration Service on grounds that "they were too poor."

The Rev. Virginia Herring, rector of St. Anne's Church, Winston-Salem, said that the North Carolina church has a partner relationship with Holy Cross Parish in Marabella.

"In 1994, a group of youth and adults from St. Anne's helped lead a neighborhood Bible school in Marabella," she said. "This year, a group from Marabella helped us lead a similar event."

Others in the group, adults and young people, "had enough money," and were allowed to come to the United States.

The issue, Ms. Herring said, is that U.S. immigration law considers "all persons who land on U.S. soil to be immigrants. Their concern is that people get here somehow, find a relative, then stay, become illegals." Immigrants from certain countries must document a certain level of resources to be allowed to enter.

Ms. Herring said members of St. Anne's wrote letters offering to sponsor the girls, and contacted senators and representatives as well as immigration officials in this country, promising to see the girls onto their return flight, all to no avail. No one could or would "override the person on the scene, the U.S. bureaucrat in Trinidad," who had refused to grant the visas.

"We fought until 5 p.m. the day their plane left. We kept saying, 'They're kids! This is a church event!

"Those girls worked a whole year selling chicken barbecue to earn money. Thirty-two teenagers - here and in Trinidad - were taught that U.S. economic policy is highly exclusive."

St. Anne's is "on the edge of Section 8 housing. We have an all-generation Bible school for poor families," Ms. Herring said. In North Carolina and in Marabella, she said, "our emphasis was to reach the unchurched, and both events were quite successful."