An Arizona affiliate of Catholic Charities USA reportedly notified 30 employees that they will be terminated on March 30 after Republicans in the U.S. Senate successfully blocked a border bill.
News that Catholic Community Services (CCS) of Southern Arizona now plans to reduce its apparent “temporary sheltering and transportation assistance” of illegal immigrants who were released into the United States by government officials surfaced through a memorandum written by Pima County Administrator Jan Lesher to the board of supervisors on February 16.
Lesher wrote in the memo, “I had hoped the U.S. Congress would pass a border and immigration bill that would provide the further funding necessary to continue the multi-agency effort” to house migrants in a bid to keep them from being “released onto city streets without shelter or support,” but understood “the likelihood of further funding being approved in the coming weeks is negligible, if not zero.”
Critics of the bill pointed to the billions of dollars in foreign aid tied to the legislation, which dedicated more funding to Ukraine than the southern border, and questioned the effectiveness of policies they said would have placed an arbitrary number of illegal immigrants that could enter the country per day.
The administrator explained her view that Pima County should not provide funding for the operations currently funded using money from the Biden administration and explained, “Our shelter services contractor, Catholic Community Services, has already notified 30 of its shelter support staff that they will no longer be employed as of March 31.”
Further, Lesher explained the depletion of federal funding will entail “the ramping down of the complex sheltering and transportation assistance system,” and one of the consequences will be “unsheltered releases in Tucson beginning as early as April 1.”
Lesher also revealed, “CCS through its Casa Alitas shelter has been involved in providing sheltering assistance” to illegal immigrants released by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) “since at least 2014,” and was additionally asked by the county government and City of Tucson to “assist with temporary sheltering” in 2019.
“CCS is still developing its operational and funding plan for April 1 onward,” Lesher continued. “I will have more details for you on that soon, including the possibility of continuing to rent county facilities to CCS.”
The organization is listed as a member of Catholic Charities USA on its website. Catholic Charities was among the religious nonprofits that received millions of dollars from the Biden administration, which immigration experts argue was used to facilitate chaos at the southern border.
Charities Charities’ alleged role in the border crisis drew the attention of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk on February 9, when he replied to Representative Tom Tiffany (R-WI-07) after the congressman revealed he “saw evidence of Casa Alitas, the American Red Cross, and Catholic Charities aiding and facilitating illegal immigration.”
This is crazy
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 10, 2024
In 2022, when Governor Greg Abbott began sending busloads of illegal immigrants from Texas to Washington, D.C., The Star News Network reported it was Catholic Charities activists who met them with food, clothing, diapers, toys, and new bus tickets to their destinations of choice.
As a result of Lesher’s memo regarding the decision by U.S. Congress not to pass the border bill, the Pima County Board of Supervisors voted on Tuesday not to provide funding after the federal money is gone.
After the decision was made, Chairwoman Adelita Grijalva reportedly suggested the supervisors “send a joint letter, possibly with the cities that are going to be impacted and the chairs from Cochise and Santa Cruz counties” to Arizona’s congressional delegation to explain their decision.
The blow to the network that housed and transported illegal immigrants after they entered the country came just days after Arizona House Speaker Ben Toma (R-Peoria) announced plans for a public referendum that would strengthen E-Verify and cut off illegal immigrants from welfare benefits in Arizona.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Georgia Star News, The Virginia Star, and the Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Illegal Immigrants” by Chief Patrol Agent Sean L. McGoffin.Â
