\t\t\t\t231<\/p>\n
(OSV News) \u2014\u00a0The 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.<\/p>\n
The federal Office of Refugee Resettlement advised the agency of the funding termination \u201cat the end of March,\u201d said Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski<\/a> of Miami in an email to OSV News.<\/p>\n The move comes amid the Trump administration\u2019s ongoing crackdown on immigration<\/a>, which saw the abrupt end<\/a> in 2025 of a decades-long partnership with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for refugee resettlement.<\/p>\n Archbishop Wenski said the children \u201cthat were in our custody have been transferred\u201d by the ORR \u201cto other facilities,\u201d noting the archdiocesan Catholic Charities agency \u201chad the capacity to care for up to 81 children.\u201d<\/p>\n He noted that some of the children could be at risk of deportation, if their parents are found to be \u201coutside of the country and wish to be reunited with the children.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSome children are very traumatized as you can imagine,\u201d Archbishop Wenski told OSV News. \u201cA 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.\u201d<\/p>\n End to a longstanding relationship<\/p>\n According to an April 15 article by the Miami Herald, the Department of Health and Human Services\u2019 Office of Refugee Resettlement had contracted with Catholic Charities for several years to shelter migrant children entering the country without parents or supervising adults.<\/p>\n The agency provided what the newspaper called \u201cthe equivalent of a federally funded foster care system\u201d parallel to that operated by state agencies.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s editorial board.<\/p>\n In that statement, the archbishop said, \u201cThe U.S. government has abruptly decided to end more than 60 years of relationship with Catholic Charities in the Archdiocese of Miami.\u201d<\/p>\n A model for other agencies in U.S.<\/p>\n He added that \u201cthe Archdiocese of Miami\u2019s services for unaccompanied minors have been recognized for their excellence and have served as a model for other agencies throughout the country.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOur track record in serving this vulnerable population is unmatched,\u201d said Archbishop Wenski in his statement. \u201cYet, the Archdiocese of Miami\u2019s Catholic Charities\u2019 services for unaccompanied minors has been stripped of funding and will be forced to shut down within three months.\u201d<\/p>\n Emily G. Hilliard, press secretary for HHS, told the Miami Herald that \u201cORR 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Low number of unaccompanied minors<\/p>\n HHS also told the outlet that the population of unaccompanied children cared for by Catholic Charities was \u201csignificantly lower\u201d under the Trump administration \u2014 1,900 as compared to a peak of 22,000 under President Joe Biden.<\/p>\n Archbishop Wenski said in his statement to the Miami Herald that although the number of unaccompanied minors had declined and that \u201csome programs may be scaled back\u201d or closed outright, \u201cit 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\u201d shown by Catholic Charities.<\/p>\n He pointed to the program\u2019s ability to provide a range of resources, including supportive services, \u201cgiven the trauma that many of these children have endured before arriving in the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n Operation Pedro Pan in early 1960s<\/p>\n The archbishop also noted the historic partnership between Catholic Charities and the federal government, particularly in regard to Operation Pedro Pan<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n 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 \u201cCuban Children\u2019s Program.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe 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,\u201d Wenski wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n He noted that among the alumni of the program are professionals, clergy and political leaders \u2014 including former U.S. Republican Sen. Melquiades (Mel) Martinez.<\/p>\n Asked by OSV News if he believed the ORR contract cancellation had resulted from the Trump administration\u2019s recent clashes with the nation\u2019s Catholic bishops over several issues \u2014 especially immigration and the U.S.-Israel war on Iran \u2014 Archbishop Wenski said, \u201cCorrelation does not mean causation.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHowever,\u201d he added, \u201cduring the end of the Biden administration, some politicians on the right make calumnious allegations that \u2018Catholic Charities\u2019 was working with the cartels in bringing children into the US.<\/p>\n \u201cThe truth is that border patrol or ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) when apprehending an unaccompanied minor is required to turn them over to HHS\u2019s ORR, who is to seek the \u2018best interest of the child\u2019 in placing him\/her,\u201d said Archbishop Wenski. \u201cOur contracts are with ORR \u2014 an agency of the federal government and no one else.\u201d<\/p>\n Gina Christian<\/a> is a multimedia reporter for OSV News. Follow her on X @GinaJesseReina<\/a>.<\/p>\n Story updated April 16 at 5:45 p.m. EDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"231 (OSV News) \u2014\u00a0The Trump administration has canceled an $11 million contract with Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":{"0":"post-235204","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami","8":"tag-miami","9":"tag-miami-headlines","10":"tag-miami-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}