The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has sued the president after Donald Trump announced a freeze on refugee resettlement funding. Since 1980 the USCCB has run the largest non-governmental refugee-resettlement program in the nation. The lawsuit says they have provided resettlement services to more than 930,000 refugees.
“For decades, the US government has chosen to admit refugees and outsourced its statutory responsibility to provide those refugees with resettlement assistance to non-profit organisations like USCCB,” the lawsuit stated.
“But now, after refugees have arrived and been placed in USCCB’s care, the government is attempting to pull the rug out from under USCCB’s programs by halting funding.”
They specifically took issue with the halting of federal reimbursements, “with no indication that any future reimbursements will be paid or that the program will ever resume.” The lawsuit states that the charity has been forced to take on debt to continue operating. “[debt payments] will continue to rise by millions of dollars every week that the Refugee Funding Suspension remains in effect”.
“[The USCCB] faces irreparable damage to its longstanding refugee resettlement programs and its reputation and relationship with its sub-recipients and the refugee populations it serves,” the lawsuit claims.“USCCB’s inability to reimburse its partner organisations, in turn, has required some of those organisations to lay off staff and may require them to stop providing aid for housing, food, and resettlement to support refugees.”
“USCCB spends more on refugee resettlement each year than it receives in funding from the federal government, but it cannot sustain its programs without millions in federal funding that provide the foundation of this private-public partnership,” the lawsuit concluded. Trump has been feuding with catholic officials for years over immigration.
Pope Francis released a letter this month asking his bishops to oppose President Trump’s immigration “I am writing today to address a few words to you in these delicate moments that you are living as Pastors of the People of God who walk together in the United States of America,” the Pope began. “Even a cursory examination of the Church’s social doctrine emphatically shows that Jesus Christ…did not live apart from the difficult experience of being expelled from his own land” He added, “The Son of God, in becoming man, also chose to live the drama of immigration.”
He quoted from Pope Pius XII, who wrote, “The family of Nazareth in exile, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, emigrants in Egypt and refugees there to escape the wrath of an ungodly king, are the model, the example and the consolation of emigrants and pilgrims of every age and country, of all refugees of every condition who, beset by persecution or necessity, are forced to leave their homeland, beloved family and dear friends for foreign lands.”
He said these teachings are specifically relevant to America. “I have followed closely the major crisis that is taking place in the United States with the initiation of a program of mass deportations,” the woke Pope said .” The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality. ”
“This is not a minor issue: an authentic rule of law is verified precisely in the dignified treatment that all people deserve, especially the poorest and most marginalized… This does not impede the development of a policy that regulates orderly and legal migration,” Francis argued. ” However, this development cannot come about through the privilege of some and the sacrifice of others. What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly,” he countered.
The woke Pope says, “Worrying about personal, community or national identity, apart from these considerations, easily introduces an ideological criterion that distorts social life and imposes the will of the strongest as the criterion of truth.” After is progressive rant, he pivoted to giving orders to American bishops. “I recognize your valuable efforts, dear brother bishops of the United States, as you work closely with migrants and refugees, proclaiming Jesus Christ and promoting fundamental human rights.”