US bishops continue legal battle with Trump administration over refugee resettlement funding

(OSV News) -- Following a setback, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is continuing its legal fight against the Trump administration's halt in federal funding for refugee resettlement services.

The bishops also are seeking reimbursement for $13 million in federal funding that had been awarded under the Biden administration, then canceled under Trump.

Chieko Noguchi, USCCB spokeswoman, said in comments provided to OSV News that "we have appealed our case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit."

"The USCCB continues to advocate for refugees and we are doing what we can to ensure that the newly arrived refugees and their families, who were assigned to our care by the State Department, are not deprived of assistance promised to them by the United States," she said.

In a 16-page decision March 11, U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden denied the bishops’ request, writing that "the Conference alleges that, over the last several weeks, the Government paused and then reneged on its contracts. At issue here is not whether the Government had the right to do so, much less whether the Government was right to do so. No, the question is far narrower: Whether this Court has the authority to afford the 'drastic' emergency relief that the Conference seeks. It does not."

McFadden, a 2017 Trump appointee, wrote that the conference is seeking a "purely contractual remedy" and "the Tucker Act instructs that all contract disputes with the Government must be resolved by the Court of Federal Claims."

On March 12, the bishop's conference moved to appeal that ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The USCCB's refugee resettlement contract with the federal government had been suspended by the administration Jan. 24, four days after Trump signed an executive order halting the U.S. Refugee Assistance Program.

The USCCB filed a lawsuit against the administration Feb. 18, arguing the suspension was "unlawful and harmful to newly arrived refugees," and "a textbook arbitrary-and-capricious agency action" that "violates multiple statutes" and "undermines the Constitution's separation of powers."

The bishops were notified of the contract's termination in two Feb. 26 letters, obtained by OSV News, sent by State Department comptroller Joseph G. Kouba to Anthony Granado, the USCCB's associate general secretary for policy and advocacy.

Kouba's letters ordered the USCCB to immediately "stop all work on the program and not incur any new costs after the effective date cited above" and to "cancel as many outstanding obligations as possible."

The letters noted that "final reports will be due in accordance with the Award Provisions." Copies of the letters were included in the Trump administration's Feb. 27 "notice of change in material facts," filed in response to the USCCB's lawsuit.

In that notice, the administration also argued that the USCCB's dispute belonged in the Court of Federal Claims.

"The State Department’s termination of the agreements underlying this dispute now plainly put this matter into the realm of a contract dispute seeking more than $10,000, which falls within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Court of Federal Claims under the Tucker Act," the administration said.

In its suit, the bishops said that as of the contract suspension date, "more than 6,700 refugees assigned to USCCB by the government … were still within their 90-day transition period."

Refugees already in the U.S. through the program "may soon be cut off from support, contravening the statutorily expressed will of Congress and making it more difficult for them to establish themselves as productive members of society," the bishops wrote at the time.