Following the Lutherans, the Catholics are now also resorting to legal action against the Trump administration’s refugee funding cuts. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has filed a lawsuit against the administration over the sudden suspension of funding for refugee assistance programs—funds that had already been approved by Congress and partially spent to cover immediate expenses.
The Catholic Church, like the Lutheran Church and other religious organizations—including the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and the Church World Service—has collaborated with the State Department since the end of World War II to support the reception and integration of refugees. These organizations assist individuals fleeing dictatorships, torture, and persecution, helping them pass the rigorous security checks (which typically take three years) before they finally arrive in the United States. Upon arrival, the refugees receive support in their first months to integrate and find work. These are thousands of people who have followed the legal path and now find themselves abandoned: with a single signature, Trump froze humanitarian aid for 90 days.
The bishops’ lawsuit emphasizes that the funds suspended by the administration—and whose resumption remains uncertain—had already been approved by Congress and partially spent. The total allocated is approximately $65 million, of which about $13 million had already been used. The move has led to layoffs, interruptions in essential services for refugees, both those who recently arrived and those stranded in transit countries or refugee camps, and has dealt a severe blow to integration projects.
Trump’s decision is part of a broader public spending reduction strategy overseen by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by billionaire Elon Musk. Trump and Musk recently praised each other in a joint interview on Fox News for the spending cuts made so far. However, bipartisan voices criticizing the harsh budget slashes for their arbitrariness are growing louder. The refugee resettlement program, for instance, is part of the United States’ humanitarian tradition and has been supported by administrations from both parties for over seventy years. The same applies to the funding for USAID, the international aid agency, which is warning of worsening humanitarian crises following the suspension of assistance.
Moreover, the budget-cutting policy has already revealed significant flaws, with glaring errors such as the dismissal of nuclear technicians at the NNSA, who were later desperately recalled, and the blunder at the Department of Agriculture (USDA), which had to reverse the firing of key employees involved in combating avian flu (just yesterday, Minnesota became the third state to declare an emergency, following California and Iowa).
The bishops’ legal action is based on two key claims: a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, which regulates the functioning of federal agencies, and a breach of the separation of powers, given that Congress, the sole authority on budgetary matters, had already approved the funds. The unilateral suspension is therefore described as an abuse of executive power.
The White House response came from Vice President JD Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019 and launched a direct attack on the bishops: “I think that the U.S. 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.”
Previously, tensions had also arisen with the Vatican after Pope Francis criticized Trump’s harsh immigration policies, prompting a brusque response from the Senior Adviser on Immigration and Enforcement Issues, the so-called “border czar” Tom Homan: “I wish he’d stick to the Catholic Church and fix that, and leave border enforcement to us.”
