The Catholic Church and Unaccompanied Migrant Children: It’s Worse Than We Thought

Last week, Corpus Christi For Unity and Peace (CUP) reported that $449 million of federal funding specifically related to shelter and transport of unaccompanied migrant children was allocated to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and Catholic Charities. This commendable effort by CUP has brought national attention to this important issue.

This week Complicit Clergy uncovered additional funding related to other Catholic organizations under the Unaccompanied Alien Children Program (CFDA 93.676). When we include those other Catholic organizations, the total amount of federal funding to all catholic NGO’s is eye popping.

The following analysis includes all Catholic organizations that received either prime grants or subawards related to CFDA 93.676 totaling $690 million between 2009 and 2024. To ensure accuracy, we excluded subawards granted to Catholic organizations by other Catholic organizations.
 

 
As CUP originally reported:

An estimated 500,000 unaccompanied migrant children crossed the U.S.-Mexico border under the Biden administration. According to Tom Homan, former acting director of ICE, and other sources, over 300,000 of these children have gone missing after being placed in the care of HHS through NGOs. Shockingly, there has been no concerted effort to track down 291,000 unaccompanied migrant children, according to HHS testimony last year. ICE was able to locate another 32,000 of the unaccompanied migrant children, but these children missed their court hearings. This leaves us with a grim reality: 323,000 children are unlocated, and their safety is uncertain, making them vulnerable to trafficking and exploitation.

How many of these missing children were assisted by our Catholic bishops and their network of Catholic NGOs? Were any of these children victims of trafficking for child labor or sexual exploitation? U.S. taxpayers deserve to know answers to these questions and we hope that the Trump administration and the U.S. Congress will hold our bishops accountable for getting answers to these questions.
 

TAKE ACTION: Tell Bishops to Stop Enabling the Illegal Invasion of Our Nation.