Organizations and nonprofits that cater to illegal aliens are begging for money from donors after losing most of their funding when the Trump administration cut their federal subsidies.
Soon after coming to office, Trump’s agencies paused funding for organizations that pay for housing, food, education, and legal expenses for the millions of illegal aliens allowed to flood the border during the Biden era. And in some cases, these organizations lost 75 percent or more of the money they were spending on catering to migrants.
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For instance, the group Estrella del Paso, which serves migrants in El Paso, Texas, expected a $7.5 million budget going into 2025. But after the Trump funding cuts, the group lost five million in federal money all at once, meaning the group was almost entirely funded by taxpayer dollars.
Now, these groups are pleading for people to dig deeper into their pockets.
“We’ve had a significant amount of money cut to the organization. We have a $7.5 million budget, and we’ve lost $5 million in funding,” Melissa Lopez, executive director of Estrella del Paso, told WTNH-TV. “That’s a huge amount of money from private donors to be able to make up. We are doing our best to find alternatives. We did file several federal lawsuits related to the suspension of the services.”
Rev. Mark J. Seitz, chair of the U.S. Conference of Bishops Committee on Migration and bishop of El Paso, is also alarmed at the massive loss of hundreds of millions in federal funding for the various organizations they support.
“Most of our organizations who were receiving some kind of government assistance in order to do their work are now cut off, unable to pay salaries,” Seitz exclaimed.
Seitz implored Catholics to donate more money through the Catholic Diocese of El Paso’s Border Refugee Assistance Fund, which is available for donations at GoFundMe and has raised nearly $160,000 to date.
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“We hope to provide a place where people in our country can turn to. We as Christians have a responsibility to help people who are being left with no place to turn to right now,” Bishop Seitz insisted.
Many of these groups are not leaving their budgets to mere donor chance and have filed a flurry of lawsuits attempting to force the federal government to hand over hundreds of millions in tax dollars to organizations that cater to migrants who broke the law to sneak into the country.
Melissa Lopez, for one, admitted that her group has filed one of these lawsuits, and promised that she intends to file even more litigation.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) also filed a lawsuit in February in an attempt to get a judge to void Trump’s federal funding cuts and to reopen the spigot of federal cash.
The USCCB has spent years using billions in USAID money to ship illegal aliens around the country and settle them in U.S. communities.
Still, with the funding currently on hold, groups such as the USCCB and the Jesuit Refugee Service have already canceled programs, laid off workers, and turned away some migrants seeking handouts and assistance.
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