State Department cancels U.S. bishops’ contracts for refugee settlement

CNA Staff, Mar 4, 2025 / 14:00 pm (CNA).

The State Department has canceled two multimillion-dollar refugee resettlement contracts with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), a move that comes as the bishops themselves are suing the Trump administration over a major funding freeze.

Two Feb. 26 “notice of termination” letters from State Department Comptroller Joseph Kouba informed USCCB Associate General Secretary Anthony Granado that two fiscal year 2025 agreements for refugee resettlement — including for a program known as “Enduring Welcome” — were “immediately terminated” as they “no longer effectuat[e] agency priorities.”

The USCCB was directed to “stop all work on the program[s] and not incur any new costs” and “cancel as many outstanding obligations as possible.”

The U.S. Department of Defense describes the Enduring Welcome program as “the U.S. government’s long-term resettlement program,” which resettles Afghan allies and their families in the United States.

Records from 2024 show the canceled programs included two separate grants totaling about $27 million for refugee resettlement. The grants were meant to cover a period from October 2024 to September 2025. 

USCCB president Archbishop Timothy Broglio said in a December 2024 letter to members of Congress that the U.S. bishops have “consistently express[ed] support for individuals who risked their lives and the lives of their family members to assist the U.S. mission and U.S. personnel in Afghanistan,” including through Enduring Welcome. 

The Department of State published the letter as part of a court filing related to the USCCB’s lawsuit against the agency, brought last month over what the bishops said was the unlawful suspension of funding for refugee programs in the United States. 

The Trump administration ordered the funding suspension as part of a series of executive orders President Donald Trump issued upon taking office. Dozens of states, groups, and nonprofits have sued the Trump administration over the funding cuts, arguing that the government exceeded its authority in canceling grants and humanitarian awards. 

In its lawsuit last month the USCCB noted that it has worked with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration for “nearly half a century” and that the bureau had committed “around $65 million in federal funding” to the USCCB and its affiliates for refugee services in fiscal year 2025.

In recent years, the USCCB has received more than $100 million annually from the federal government to support migration and refugee services. 

The U.S. bishops had brought their suit in U.S. district court, but in its filing last week the State Department said that with the official cancellation of the contract, the matter is now a “contract dispute” that should be addressed by the Court of Federal Claims. 

The district court’s authority over the case is now “clearly absent,” the department claimed, as “the parties’ agreements are no longer in force.”

The USCCB did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday morning. In a Monday filing, however, the bishops argued that the suit “must remain in district court” because the Court of Federal Claims “cannot provide the relief most important for USCCB.”

The termination of the contract, the bishops said in the Monday filing, was “causing irreparable injury to USCCB, frustrating the conference’s mission to assist refugees assigned to it.”

“There is no dispute that without the funds the government promised when it assigned refugees to USCCB, USCCB will be unable to continue providing essential food, housing, and training to the thousands of recently arrived refugees in its care,” the bishops said.

“Every day that passes with the unlawful termination in effect is another day that USCCB is unable to fulfill its mission to follow the model of Jesus Christ and serve these poor and vulnerable neighbors,” they argued.

Source: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/262551/state-department-cancels-us-bishops-contracts-for-refugee-settlement