By Peter Smith
Catholic bishops continued the Trump administration on Tuesday for abrupt the funding of the resettlement of refugees, qualifying the illegal and harmful action for newly arrived refugees and the largest private resettlement program in the country.
The American Conference of Catholic Bishops claims that the administration, by retaining millions, even for reimbursements of the costs incurred before the sudden cut of funding, violates various laws as well as the constitutional provision giving the power of the grant to the congress, which has already approved funding.
The conference migration and refugee services have sent dismissal notices to 50 workers, more than half of its staff, with additional discounts expected in local Catholic offices that associate themselves with the National Office, said the trial .
“The Catholic Church is always working to maintain the common good of all and to promote the dignity of the human person, in particular the most vulnerable of us,” said Archbishop Timothy Broglio, president of the USCCB. “This includes children to be born, the poor, the foreigner, the elderly and the infirm and the migrants.” The funding suspension prevents the Church from doing so, he said.
“The conference is suddenly incapable of maintaining work to take care of the thousands of refugees who have been welcomed in our country and assigned to the USCCB care by the government after obtaining legal status,” said Broglio.
The conference is trying to maintain the program, but it is “financially unbearable,” he said, adding that he is trying to keep the US government to his “moral and legal commitments”.
The conference is one of the 10 national agencies, most of them among the confession, which serve refugees and which have been sent by the jamming since the reception of a letter from the State Department of January 24 to inform them of a Immediate suspension of funding pending an examination of foreign aid programs.
The trial, submitted to the American district court of the Columbia district, notes that the resettlement program is not even foreign aid. It is a domestic program to help newly arrived refugees – who are legally arriving after being checked abroad – meet the initial needs such as housing and placement.
“The USCCB spends more in resettlement of refugees each year than in the financing of the federal government, but it cannot support its programs without the millions of federal funding which provide the basis of this private public partnership,” said the trial.
The trial said the government was trying to “withdraw the carpet” from the program, which caused it for a long time.
The trial appoints the departments of state and health and social services as well as their respective secretaries, Marco Rubio and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The two departments play a role in the delegation of resettlement work at the Bishops Conference .
There was no immediate response before the court of these departments.
The USCCB said it is still waiting for around $ 13 million in expenses before January 24.
As of January 25, he said, 6,758 refugees awarded by the government to USCCB care which were in the country less than 90 days, the period for which they are eligible for resettlement aid.
The conference said that the suspension of the resettlement effort will only prolong the time necessary for refugees to find a job and become self -sufficient.
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Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
