A few Republican members of Congress are threatening to reduce or eliminate funding for Catholic Charities and other faith-based groups that offer aid to immigrants at the U.S. southern border. The lawmakers, who are echoing the campaigns of conservative Catholic groups that vow to “#defund the bishops,” have already succeeded in inserting their agenda into legislation passed by the House this year. Another attempt to zero-out appropriations for a key Department of Homeland Security program supporting faith-based border efforts is awaiting a vote in Congress.
In December, Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Tex.), who serves on the House Judiciary Committee, wrote a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. In the letter, co-signed by Reps. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) and Jake Ellzey (R-Tex.), the lawmakers complained that the Biden administration was “allowing non-governmental organizations … the freedom to aid and abet illegal aliens.”
In addition, lawmakers sent letters to Catholic Charities, Jewish Family Services and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service demanding that they preserve documents “related to any expenditures submitted for reimbursement from the federal government related to migrants encountered at the southern border.”
Contacted by Religion News Service, Anthony Granado, vice president of government relations at Catholic Charities USA, said, “We have not seen such a level of direct … attack against Catholic Charities USA.”
In May, when Gooden wrote another letter to Mayorkas, this time with Reps. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), they accused the nong0overnmental organizations that use federal funds to aid immigrants of creating an “incentive” for illegal immigration and demanded access to a broad swath of records about DHS funding practices.
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