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(OSV News) — The Trump administration has canceled an $11 million contract with Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami for sheltering unaccompanied migrant children, leaving just three months to place an unspecified number of children.
The federal Office of Refugee Resettlement advised the agency of the funding termination “at the end of March,” said Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski of Miami in an email to OSV News.
The move comes amid the Trump administration’s ongoing crackdown on immigration, which saw the abrupt end in 2025 of a decades-long partnership with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for refugee resettlement.
Archbishop Wenski said the children “that were in our custody have been transferred” by the ORR “to other facilities,” noting the archdiocesan Catholic Charities agency “had the capacity to care for up to 81 children.”
He noted that some of the children could be at risk of deportation, if their parents are found to be “outside of the country and wish to be reunited with the children.”
“Some children are very traumatized as you can imagine,” Archbishop Wenski told OSV News. “A child without parents on his or her own cannot cross the territory of Mexico, for example, without incurring some trauma, including in some instances rape.”
End to a longstanding relationship
According to an April 15 article by the Miami Herald, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement had contracted with Catholic Charities for several years to shelter migrant children entering the country without parents or supervising adults.
The agency provided what the newspaper called “the equivalent of a federally funded foster care system” parallel to that operated by state agencies.
Archbishop Wenski of Miami had declined direct comment to the newspaper for its article, but his office instead provided a statement the archbishop had written for the Miami Herald’s editorial board.
In that statement, the archbishop said, “The U.S. government has abruptly decided to end more than 60 years of relationship with Catholic Charities in the Archdiocese of Miami.”
A model for other agencies in U.S.
He added that “the Archdiocese of Miami’s services for unaccompanied minors have been recognized for their excellence and have served as a model for other agencies throughout the country.”
“Our track record in serving this vulnerable population is unmatched,” said Archbishop Wenski in his statement. “Yet, the Archdiocese of Miami’s Catholic Charities’ services for unaccompanied minors has been stripped of funding and will be forced to shut down within three months.”
Emily G. Hilliard, press secretary for HHS, told the Miami Herald that “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.”
Low number of unaccompanied minors
HHS also told the outlet that the population of unaccompanied children cared for by Catholic Charities was “significantly lower” under the Trump administration — 1,900 as compared to a peak of 22,000 under President Joe Biden.
Archbishop Wenski said in his statement to the Miami Herald that although the number of unaccompanied minors had declined and that “some programs may be scaled back” or closed outright, “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” shown by Catholic Charities.
He pointed to the program’s ability to provide a range of resources, including supportive services, “given the trauma that many of these children have endured before arriving in the U.S.”
Operation Pedro Pan in early 1960s
The archbishop also noted the historic partnership between Catholic Charities and the federal government, particularly in regard to Operation Pedro Pan, which in the early 1960s saw 110 Catholic Charities agencies throughout the nation shelter thousands of children from Cuba, in collaboration with the U.S. State Department.
Between 1960 and 1964, some 7,000 of the 14,000 Cuban children who entered the U.S. were temporarily housed by Catholic Charities under the “Cuban Children’s Program.”
“The positive impact of this cooperation between the federal government and Catholic Charities can be readily seen in the lives of former Pedro Pan children who, through this intervention, grew up to be successful members of our communities,” Wenski wrote.
He noted that among the alumni of the program are professionals, clergy and political leaders — including former U.S. Republican Sen. Melquiades (Mel) Martinez.
Asked by OSV News if he believed the ORR contract cancellation had resulted from the Trump administration’s recent clashes with the nation’s Catholic bishops over several issues — especially immigration and the U.S.-Israel war on Iran — Archbishop Wenski said, “Correlation does not mean causation.”
“However,” he added, “during the end of the Biden administration, some politicians on the right make calumnious allegations that ‘Catholic Charities’ was working with the cartels in bringing children into the US.
“The truth is that border patrol or ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) when apprehending an unaccompanied minor is required to turn them over to HHS’s ORR, who is to seek the ‘best interest of the child’ in placing him/her,” said Archbishop Wenski. “Our contracts are with ORR — an agency of the federal government and no one else.”
Gina Christian is a multimedia reporter for OSV News. Follow her on X @GinaJesseReina.
Story updated April 16 at 5:45 p.m. EDT