The Trump administration canceled millions of dollars in funding to Catholic Charities in Miami.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), under the Department of Health and Human Services, has been a long-time source of funding for the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami under the unaccompanied children program. The Catholic Charities received $11 million from HHS in fiscal year 2025, according to federal spending data, but the award ended as of March 31.

HHS press secretary Emily Hilliard said the number of unaccompanied children in ORR care dropped under the Trump administration when asked about the decision to end the funding.

“ORR is closing and consolidating unused facilities as the Trump Administration continues efforts to stop illegal entry and the smuggling and trafficking of unaccompanied alien children,” Hilliard said. The decision not to renew the contract took place on Feb. 16, according to HHS.

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What have Catholic Charities in Miami historically done?

Thomas Wenski, archbishop of the Archdiocese of Miami, asked for the decision to be reviewed in an April 16 opinion piece published to the organization’s website. In it, he wrote that the archdiocese has worked with the ORR since 1960 to provide shelter, among other services, to unaccompanied minor children.

The partnership with the U.S. government began, Wenski wrote, with Operation “Pedro Pan,” which, led by Monsignor Bryant O. Walsh, “helped resettle some 14,000 Cuban children sent alone” to the U.S. by “desperate parents seeking to protect them” from 1960 to 1962.

Today, the Msgr. Bryan O. Walsh Children’s Village, a facility in Palmetto Bay, can shelter up to 81 minors, according to Wenski’s op-ed, with the program helping place children in foster care and reunite them with family members.

“It is true that the number of unaccompanied minors entering the country has decreased. It is also understandable that some programs may be scaled back or even eliminated,” Wenski wrote.

“But given the history and reputation of the Msgr. Bryan O. Walsh Children’s Village, it is baffling that the U.S. government would shut down a program that it would be hard-pressed to replicate at the level of competence and excellence that Catholic Charities has achieved if and when future waves of unaccompanied minors reach our shores,” he added.

Wenski wrote that the stripping of funding will force the Archdiocese of Miami’s Catholic Charities’ services for unaccompanied minors to shut down in three months.

Sarah Perkel is a South Florida Connect Reporter for the USA TODAY Network’s Florida Connect team. You can get all of Florida’s best content directly in your inbox each weekday day by signing up for the free newsletter, Florida TODAY.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump didn’t renew Miami Catholic Charities funding that helped Cubans