Migrant children from Honduras picked up at the Mexican border by federal agents
Amid President Donald Trump’s escalating feud with Pope Leo XIV, the Trump administration has canceled an $11 million contract with Catholic Charities in Miami, Florida, to shelter and care for migrant children who enter the U.S. unaccompanied, a relationship that dates back to the 1960s, the Miami Herald reports.
“The U.S. government has abruptly decided to end more than 60 years of relationship with Catholic Charities in the Archdiocese of Miami,” Archbishop Thomas Wenski wrote, according to the Miami Herald. “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.”
Catholic Charities was contracted to operate a full-service child welfare program in the Miami-Dade area.
Our track record in serving this vulnerable population is unmatched. 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,” Archbishop Wenski noted.
The Trump administration is citing a reduction in unaccompanied minors crossing the border, which the archdiocese acknowledges. But that population still exists, and it is unknown how many children will be uprooted and relocated, or where they will go.
The Department of Health and Human Services described the daily population of unaccompanied migrant children in the agency’s care as “significantly lower,” than it had been under the Biden administration.
Health and Human Services’ press secretary Emily G. Hillard suggested that the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s closure of unused facilities “continues efforts to stop illegal entry and the smuggling and trafficking of unaccompanied alien children.”
But Wenski called it “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 the church.
Describing being moved as “incredibly psychologically harmful” to the children, Robert Latham, associate director of the University of Miami Law School’s Children and Youth Law Clinic, “said any relocation to a new foster home or shelter likely would be traumatic for children who already have suffered uncertainty and loss.”
“For little kids, moving repeatedly creates bonding issues and destroys the sense of both self and community. They don’t know who they are and where they will be” from day to day, he said.
“God does not bless any conflict,” Pope Leo wrote on social media. “Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs. Military action will not create space for freedom or times of #Peace, which comes only from the patient promotion of coexistence and dialogue among peoples.”
The Guardian called it a “rebuke” over the Iran war, and noted that while the Pope did not name names, his post criticized attempts to use religion to glorify the U.S. war in the Middle East.
Trump responded to the Pope’s remarks, saying that he had “nothing to apologize for,” and stated that the Pope was “wrong.”
The pope has continued his opposition to the Iran war.
On Tuesday, he wrote, “God’s heart is torn apart by wars, violence, injustice and lies. But our Father’s heart is not with the wicked, the arrogant, or the proud. God’s heart is with the little ones and the humble, and with them He builds up His Kingdom of love and peace day by day. Wherever there is love and service, God is there.”
Just days ago, Trump told reporters, “We don’t like a pope that’s gonna say that it’s okay to have a nuclear weapon. We don’t want a pope that says, crime is okay in our cities. I don’t like it. I’m not a big fan of Pope Leo. He’s a very liberal person, and he’s a man that doesn’t believe in stopping crime. He’s a man that doesn’t think that we should be toying with a country that wants a nuclear weapon so they can blow up the world.”
Trump also recently described the Pope as “Weak on Nuclear Weapons.”
Reprinted with permission from Alternet
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