A Catholic group has been using tax dollars to promote, support and protect illegal aliens. That is against the law and the Trump Administration has stopped this corruption. Now, will Trump ask for the abused money already spent back?
“U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden declined to grant the temporary restraining order that the conference argued was necessary to prevent the sudden termination of services for approximately 6,700 refugees and layoffs for staff involved in the long-standing program starting next Friday.
Since 1980, the bishops and partner organizations have worked with the federal government through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, where the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration reimburses resettlement services organizations provide to refugees within 90 days of their arrival.
Such reimbursements are paid to the conference, which then transfers the funds to its partner organizations.
This is how nice sounding organizations launder money to bad people. Glad we had DOGE to find this out.
Federal judge rejects Catholic bishops’ request for suspended refugee resettlement funds
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops said the State Department had failed to pay $13 million in unpaid reimbursements from November 2024, with additional costs rising since the resettlement program was suspended on Jan. 24.
Ryan Knappenberger, Courthousenews, 2/20/25 https://www.courthousenews.com/federal-judge-rejects-catholic-bishops-request-for-suspended-refugee-resettlement-funds/
WASHINGTON (CN) — A federal judge on Thursday denied the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ request to release suddenly halted funds for refugee resettlement programs.
U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden declined to grant the temporary restraining order that the conference argued was necessary to prevent the sudden termination of services for approximately 6,700 refugees and layoffs for staff involved in the long-standing program starting next Friday.
Since 1980, the bishops and partner organizations have worked with the federal government through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, where the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration reimburses resettlement services organizations provide to refugees within 90 days of their arrival.
Such reimbursements are paid to the conference, which then transfers the funds to its partner organizations.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio suspended funding on Jan. 24, issuing a two-page letter to the conference that cited President Donald Trump’s executive order halting all foreign assistance.
According to the bishops, the letter suggests organizations can receive compensation for actions taken before Jan. 24, but there have been no reimbursements since November. The conference says it is awaiting $13 million in unpaid reimbursements and owes an additional $11.6 million to its partner organizations, a sum that increases $1 million per week.
McFadden, a Trump appointee, ordered an expedited briefing schedule, with the next hearing set for Feb. 28, where he would consider a preliminary injunction on a more substantial record.
David Casazza of Gibson Dunn represented the bishops and said they would not have sued had Rubio followed a more orderly procedure, suggesting at least a review of the ongoing program before suspending it, rather than what happened here.
Justice Department attorney Joseph Carilli argued that the suspension was fully within the president’s authority and defended Rubio’s conduct.
“This approach is meant to safeguard funding,” Carilli said. “Each day you’re reviewing is a dollar out of the public fist.”
McFadden seemed skeptical, pushing Carilli to provide a legal basis to claim that Trump had the right to suspend funds appropriated by Congress.
Carilli suggested that the president has control over refugee programs and how many refugees are allowed into the country at any given time but did not provide any specific statutory citations.
Casazza argued the sudden suspension of funds was a clear violation of the parties’ annual cooperative agreements that establish the funding each year.
According to Rubio’s two-page letter, the executive order paused all foreign aid, but Casazza explained that the agreement specifically defines the rendered services as “domestic assistance.”
The services were contained within the United States, Casazza said, because every refugee recipient had already claimed asylum in the country and had been screened upon their arrival.
McFadden seemed to find the argument convincing, saying that, at this early stage, the bishops “seem to have the better argument” based on the agreement’s language.
He struggled, however, with the bishops’ irreparable harm arguments, considering the chance most of the apparent financial harms could be redressed through further litigation, potentially before the Court of Federal Claims.
Dhananjay Manthripragada, also of Gibson Dunn, said the request for a temporary restraining order was the bishops’ last resort.
After the Jan. 24 letter, the bishops went to the bureau for further guidance but received little clarification, Manthripragada said.
Without the court’s intervention, the conference would suffer harms from lost experience and expertise by terminating more than the 50 employees they had already laid off, as well as the lost goodwill, reputation, and trust from its partner organizations and refugees themselves.
McFadden indicated he would issue a ruling on a preliminary injunction motion before March 7, when the bishops warned the terminations would take effect. In the meantime, he ordered the parties to meet for mediation next week to address reimbursement for services provided before Jan. 24.
McFadden noted that despite the increased amount of granted temporary restraining orders by fellow judges in the E. Barrett Prettyman courthouse, such emergency relief “should be granted sparingly.”
Advocacy groups and federal employee unions have flocked to the federal courthouse in Washington seeking emergency relief from Trump’s sweeping actions aimed at reshaping the government in his image through mass terminations, blanket federal funding freezes, and the dismantling of federal agencies.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, a Barack Obama appointee, explained the court’s role in responding to Trump’s “onslaught of executive actions that have caused, some say by design, disruption and even chaos in widespread quarters of American society.”
Writing in an opinion Thursday denying a temporary restraining order against Trump’s mass terminations, Cooper said the “mixed results” in requested emergency relief should not be surprising.
“Federal district judges are duty-bound to decide legal issues based on even-handed application law and precedent — no matter the identity of the litigants or, regrettably at times, the consequences of their rulings for average people.”
