Trump administration terminates U.S. bishops’ refugee resettlement contract

The Trump administration “immediately terminated” its contract with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for refugee resettlement, effective Feb. 27, according to letters issued by the U.S. State Department a day earlier.

Chieko Noguchi, executive director of the USCCB’s Office of Public Affairs, confirmed the cancellation, telling OSV News by Feb. 28 email that “on Feb. 26, the USCCB received notice from the State Department that they are terminating two of the cooperative agreements that fund much of the work we do in our Migration and Refugee Services department.”

The contract had been suspended by the administration Jan. 24, just four days after President Donald Trump signed an executive order halting the U.S. Refugee Assistance Program.

USRAP, a domestic program, was established by Congress in 1980 to formalize the process by which refugees vetted and approved by the U.S. government are legally resettled in the U.S. The program is an interagency effort that includes federal entities, the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations such as the Catholic Church.

The USCCB’s Migration and Refugee Services was one of 10 national resettlement agencies working with USRAP.

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

Noguchi told OSV News that at a Feb. 28 court hearing for the case, “the judge requested additional briefing in response to the February 26 State Department letters. 

“We are preparing the requested briefing, which will be filed with the court next week,” she said. “Since this is an ongoing legal matter, I decline further comment at this time.”

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

The nearly identically worded letters separately referenced the bishops’ “Enduring Welcome Reception and Placement” program for fiscal year 2025 and their “MRA Reception and Placement” program for fiscal year 2024.

“This award no longer effectuates agency priorities,” wrote Kouba in both letters, citing passage 2 CFR 200.340 of the Code of Federal Regulations. OSV News has reached out to Kouba for comment and is awaiting a response.

In December 2023, Kouba received a State Department public finance award for helping the agency’s humanitarian bureau fund relocation efforts — including those for more than 72,000 Afghan refugees and other displaced persons — “at a level over $2 billion more and with 50% more funded partners than just five years ago,” according to the agency.

Kouba’s Feb. 26 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 also 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.

“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,” said the administration in its notice. “That is, the termination of the agreements leaves open only a question of unpaid money under the cooperative agreements, and, to the extent Plaintiff disputes any reimbursement, the dispute needs to brought in the Court of Federal Claims.”

The notice also asserted that even if the court could have considered “injunctive relief” for the USCCB, “any such jurisdiction is now clearly absent as there is no action the Court could compel — the parties’ agreements are no longer in force.”

Additionally, the administration said the USCCB “can claim no irreparable harm absent an injunction,” since “the only relief now available” to the bishops consists of “money damages should the parties be unable to resolve any payment disputes” through available administrative channels.

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,” warned the bishops.

Additionally, they said, “as a direct result of the suspension, USCCB has millions of dollars in pending, unpaid reimbursements for services already rendered to refugees and is accruing millions more each week — with no indication that any future reimbursements will be paid or that the program will ever resume.”

The USCCB “has already been forced to initiate layoffs for fifty employees,” with its partner organizations also left to let staff go, due to the conference’s “inability to reimburse its partner organizations,” said the filing.

On Feb. 25, U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead in Seattle granted a preliminary injunction blocking the resettlement suspension, finding the Trump administration’s actions in the matter represented “an effective nullification of congressional will.”

Refugee aid groups including HIAS and Church World Service — who also received contract termination notices — have requested an emergency hearing with Whitehead, scheduled for March 3, to prevent the Trump administration from making what they have called an “end run” around the judge’s injunction through the termination notices.

The groups also noted in their request that “termination of funding based on purported ‘alignment with Agency priorities’ cannot be justified if agency action is unlawful.”

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