Utah diocese’s Catholic refugee program gets helping hand from greater community

SALT LAKE CITY (OSV News) — After the federal government ceased its refugee resettlement program in January, Catholic Community Services of Utah was left scrambling to serve the 300 refugee families already in Utah that they had contracted to provide for.

Because of the federal funding cuts, CCS had to lay off more than half of its resettlement staff. They also began praying for a miracle that would allow them to continue to provide critical services to the refugees. Now, the generosity of the Utah community has made that possible.

Over the last few weeks more than $1.5 million has been donated to the agency after Intermountain Catholic, Salt Lake City’s diocesan news outlet, newspaper and other local media outlets highlighted its plight. Most of the donations, ranging from $20 to $1 million, were from individuals, said Aden Batar, who directs CCS’s migration and refugee services.

On Jan. 20 President Donald Trump signed an executive order suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program and canceling all contracts related to it, and the termination of the cooperative agreement by the U.S. Department of State with several refugee resettlement agencies, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The order also froze payment of all outstanding invoices for services already performed. This left CCS and other relief organizations across the country with large funding gaps for their programs.

Within weeks the agency, which is sponsored by the Diocese of Salt Lake City, had spent $1 million of its own reserves to continue to provide housing, employment assistance, health services and case management to refugee families already living here, having been resettled by the federal government.

In early April CCS announced it would be able to provide refugee services to those families only if private funding could be found to make up for the lack of federal funding. In addition to preparing to apply for grants, Catholic Community Services reached out to the community for help.

As always, community members responded, Batar said.

“I knew that our community would always come through, (but) I wasn’t expecting so quickly we were going to get that much money,” he told Intermountain Catholic. “That really gives us high hope. Our community is always there for us to support us and they always, whenever we ask them, support (our efforts). I knew they were going to come through. Every time that we are up against the wall, another door opens for us, and then our community really, really comes through.”

The services CCS provides are critical to the successful integration of these refugees into American society, he said.

“Integration takes a long time,” Batar said. “We can’t just bring people here and then after few months say, ‘Oh, the program is closed. Goodbye.’ We cannot do that. We have to make sure to provide them all the support that they need, because we want them to succeed.”

Batar acknowledged that the Trump administration is unlikely to resume resettlement of refugees at past levels, but he hopes it might do so on a smaller scale.

“The reason why we are focusing these four years on the families that are here is that we’re hopeful that the next administration will change the way things are right now, and hopefully, we’ll go back to the normal refugee resettlement program, as previous administrations have done,” he said.

While the donations already received are a good start, CCS will need an additional $1 million from the community to help fund the refugee program for the next four years, Batar said. With this funding CCS will also be able to continue to provide legal representation to 126 unaccompanied refugee youth who are seeking asylum in the U.S.

This is a tough task in today’s uncertain economy, Batar acknowledged, but he promises that CCS will be a good steward of the money they receive.

“I want to assure the community that every donation that they give, it will be put to good use,” he said. “It will not be wasted. People trust Catholic Community Services, and we will make sure that donations go to support the refugee families that are already here.”

This story was originally published by Intermountain Catholic, the news outlet of the Diocese of Salt Lake City, and distributed through a partnership with OSV News. Linda Petersen is a staff writer at Intermountain Catholic.

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