The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has sued the Trump administration, asserting that President Trump’s order suspending refugee grants was illegal and demanding millions in what it claims is owed to Catholic charities for work performed under the grant. The USCCB represents the leadership of the Catholic Church in the United States,
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, names as defendants the State Department, the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration and the Department of Health and Human Services. It says the bishops have partnered with the U.S. government for nearly 50 years, and that the bureau has committed to provide $65 million to the USCCB “for the immediate physical needs and integration of refugees into their new communities.”
“But now, after refugees have already 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.”
The suit says the Trump administration hasn’t made any payments to the USCCB since Jan. 24 and owes money for services that go back to November.
The impact is “devastating” for the USCCB and the people with whom it works, the suit says. More than 6,700 refugees assigned to the USCCB by the government were still within their “90-day transition period,” the suit said.
As a result, the USCCB now has millions of dollars in pending, unpaid reimbursements and “is accruing millions more each week.” The conference has started the process of laying off 50 people and “faces irreparable damage to its longstanding refugee resettlement programs and its reputation and relationship with … the refugee populations it serves.”
USCCB vs. State Department by streiff on Scribd
Keeping in mind that IANAL (but I am an active Catholic), but I think this will turn out to be one of the most damaging things the USCCB has done since the last incredibly damaging thing that they did.
While they should be paid for services rendered up until the date Trump pulled the plug on the grant, most of the rest of the lawsuit strikes me as an emotional appeal. Just because Trump shut off the flow to the trough to the USCCB’s network of charities doesn’t mean that a) the law was broken, b) refugees were not being served, and c) the USCCB has a property right to tax dollars.
Though the USCCB is focusing on a specific $65 million grant, it has been the recipient of massive amounts of federal cash. In 2024, it took in $253 million from the State Department. I think the amount of cash it has received from the federal government will end up being more of an issue than the money it claims to have lost.
My second thought is that if your religious organization requires federal dollars to operate, it really isn’t a religious organization. Of course, if the USCCB really believes, as it says in the lawsuit, that it has a religious obligation to serve refugees, then it follows that they would have served them for nothing. As they got nothing, it is hard to understand the complaint. This is really about jobs. There is not enough philanthropy to fund the overhead driving the boots-on-the-ground. Trump’s pause in aid has hammered those full-time Catholic non-profit jobs which are present in most dioceses.
“[The USCCB] faces irreparable damage to its longstanding refugee resettlement programs and its reputation and relationship with its subrecipients and the refugee populations it serves,” the lawsuit states. “USCCB’s inability to reimburse its partner organizations, in turn, has required some of those organizations to lay off staff and may require them to stop providing aid for housing, food, and resettlement to support refugees.”
The USCCB’s complicity in Joe Biden’s war on our border security has not gone unnoticed, and neither has the amount of money it has raked in to deal with a deliberately manufactured issue. Vice President Vance has publicly questioned the USCCB’s funding and its involvement in resisting US immigration law.
MARGARET BRENNAN: The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops this week condemned some of the executive orders signed by President Trump, specifically those allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement to enter churches and to enter schools. Do you personally support the idea of conducting a raid or enforcement action in a church service, at a school?
VICE PRESIDENT VANCE: Well, let me, let me address this. Of course, if you have a person who is convicted of a violent crime, whether they’re an illegal immigrant or a non-illegal immigrant, you have to go and get that person to protect the public safety. That’s not unique to immigration. But let me just address the- this particular issue, Margaret. Because as a practicing Catholic, I was actually heartbroken by that statement. And I think that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops needs to actually look in the mirror a little bit and recognize that when they receive over $100 million to help resettle illegal immigrants, are they worried about humanitarian concerns? Or are they actually worried about their bottom line? We’re going to enforce immigration law. We’re going to protect the American people.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah.
VICE PRESIDENT VANCE: Donald Trump promised to do that. And I believe the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, if they’re worried about the humanitarian costs of immigration enforcement, let them talk about the children who have been sex trafficked because of the wide open border of Joe Biden–
(CROSSTALK)
MARGARET BRENNAN: –So you- you personally support–
VICE PRESIDENT VANCE: Let them talk about–
MARGARET BRENNAN: –them going into–
VICE PRESIDENT VANCE: –people like Laken Riley–
MARGARET BRENNAN: –schools and churches?
(END CROSSTALK)
VICE PRESIDENT VANCE: –who are brutally murdered. I support us doing law enforcement against violent criminals, whether they’re illegal immigrants or anybody else, in a way that keeps us safe. Let me ask this question, Margaret–
MARGARET BRENNAN: But, but the–
VICE PRESIDENT VANCE: –let’s separate the immigration issue. If you had a violent murderer in a school, of course I want law enforcement–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Of course.
VICE PRESIDENT VANCE: –to go and get that person out.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Of course.
VICE PRESIDENT VANCE: So then what’s the point of the question?
MARGARET BRENNAN: You changed the regulation this week, that’s the point of the question.
VICE PRESIDENT VANCE: Exactly, to–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Giving the authority to go into churches–
VICE PRESIDENT VANCE: –Yes, exactly–
MARGARET BRENNAN: –and go into schools–
VICE PRESIDENT VANCE: We empowered law enforcement to enforce the law everywhere, to protect Americans–
MARGARET BRENNAN: –But that also has a knock on effect- a chilling effect, arguably, to people to not send their kids to school.
VICE PRESIDENT VANCE: I- I desperately hope it has a chilling effect–
MARGARET BRENNAN: –In the churches–
VICE PRESIDENT VANCE: –on illegal immigrants coming into our country.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You think the US Conference of Catholics Bishops is- are actively hiding criminals from law enforcement?
VICE PRESIDENT VANCE: I think the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has, frankly, not been a good partner in common sense immigration enforcement that the American people voted for, and I hope, again, as a devout Catholic, that they’ll do better.
I expect this lawsuit to have some success at the district judge level because someone on the DC Circuit will hear the case. Most of it, I think, will eventually evaporate. I hope the administration is taking names and remembering the organizations engaging in lawfare against them when the next grant cycle rolls around.
