The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) sued President Donald Trump’s administration over its abrupt freezing of federal funds for refugee settlement programs in the US.
In its complaint filed before a federal court for the District of Columbia on February 18, the conference called the Trump administration's action “unlawful and harmful to the newly arrived refugees.”
The lawsuit appeals to the Trump administration to uphold its legal and moral obligations to refugees and to lift the suspension of federal funding.
It also states that the impact of the funding suspension is devastating to the conference and the thousands of refugees it supports.
According to the lawsuit, the conference supported nearly 7,000 refugees who were at the stage of the 90-day resettlement period when federal funding was halted.
It also said millions of dollars in assistance for the refugees disappeared following Trump’s executive order “with no indication that any future reimbursements will be paid or that the program will ever resume.”
According to an Associated Press report, the conference President Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio said “The conference suddenly finds itself unable to sustain its work to care for the thousands of refugees who were welcomed into our country and assigned to the care of the USCCB by the government after being granted legal status.”
“The Catholic Church always works to uphold the common good of all and promote the dignity of the human person, especially the most vulnerable among us,” said Archbishop Timothy Broglio, president of the conference. “That includes the unborn, the poor, the stranger, the elderly and infirm, and migrants.”
Briolo noted the funding freeze hampers the church's work on vulnerable refugees.
“The conference suddenly finds itself unable to sustain its work to care for the thousands of refugees who were welcomed into our country and assigned to the care of the USCCB by the government after being granted legal status,” he said.
According to the conference, it is looking at about US $13 million in expense reimbursements before Trump signs the executive order on January 24, suspending the funding.
The conference said they are handling 6,758 refugees who have been in the US for less than 90 days, for whom they’re eligible for resettlement assistance.
The Migration and Refugee Services of the conference is a resettlement organization that has been collaborating with the US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) for the past decades.
The executive order signed by Trump on January 20 suspended USRAP.
The Trump administration faces a mounting number of lawsuits protesting its sweeping cuts and mass layoffs in the federal government.
Radio Veritas Asia (RVA), a media platform of the Catholic Church, aims to share Christ. RVA started in 1969 as a continental Catholic radio station to serve Asian countries in their respective local language, thus earning the tag “the Voice of Asian Christianity.” Responding to the emerging context, RVA embraced media platforms to connect with the global Asian audience via its 21 language websites and various social media platforms.
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