Santa Rosa-based Catholic Charities of Northwest California will lose $309,222 it had earmarked for classes that help prepare legal permanent residents for the naturalization test they must pass to become citizens.
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Jennielynn Holmes, the CEO of Catholic Charities in Santa Rosa, held out hope after the nonprofit learned on Feb. 4 that just under $500,000 in grant funding from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had been frozen.
That bad-news email had arrived a week after the Trump administration had issued an order freezing trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans — a step that was blocked by a judge the following day, then rescinded by the White House.
What was frozen, Holmes hoped, might be unfrozen.
That hope was extinguished Thursday, when Catholic Charities of Northwest California received a brusque memo from the Department of Homeland Security:
“Effective immediately,” the DHS “hereby terminates the Award,” the memo said.
Read the “Intent to Terminate” notice here:
Intent to Terminate.pdf
In addition to the work it does to provide housing and food assistance, among other services, Catholic Charities offers counseling and support to legal, permanent residents working toward U.S. citizenship.
Since 2009, it has received an annual grant from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which falls under the Homeland Security Department, to pay for citizenship classes that help prepare applicants for the naturalization test they must pass to achieve that goal.
But Homeland Security, now run by former South Dakota governor Kristi Noem, had “determined that the scope of your work performed under this award no longer effectuates the program goals and the Department’s priorities,” according to the memo, signed by Grants Management Officer Jacqueline Greely.
Catholic Charities, it went on, “must cease all federally funded work under this Award and any costs incurred for such work on or after the date of this letter will be unallowable.”
By the department’s calculations, the amount of “unobligated” — unspent — federal funding remaining in the Catholic Charities grant was $309,222.
“As such, DHS intends to reduce the amount of approved federal funding for the Award by this amount.”
Most concerning about the news, Holmes said, was that the funds had been earmarked to help immigrants who are trying to lawfully make the United States their home.
“This funding was for legal permanent residents,” she said, “people who went through the immigration system, made it to the other side, did not do anything illegal, are not criminals. And this funding is still being pulled back.”
While the money underwriting them just disappeared, enrollment in the citizenship classed had recently tripled, Holmes said, “because everyone’s trying to get to a more secure status, sooner, to protect themselves and their families.”
The Santa Rosa-based nonprofit is one of many regional Catholic Charities agencies across the country to lose funding in the wake of the Trump administration’s cuts. Some have been forced to cancel programs and lay off staff, according to the National Catholic Register.
On Feb. 18, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration challenging its suspension of funding for refugee programs — many of them run by Catholic Charities.
“All of us, the recipients of these funds, are faced with a decision,” Holmes said. “Do we continue to provide these services without any funding?”
For now, Holmes said, Catholic Charities of Northwest California will continue its citizenship program. The stakes are too high to do otherwise, she believes.
“We don’t want to just sustain what we were doing. We need to accelerate, because we need to get people more secure status as quickly as possible.”
The same day Catholic Charities’ funds were frozen, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors voted to allocate $500,000 to support “undocumented, immigrant and refugee resident of Sonoma County during this time of uncertainty nationwide.”
This came a day after California lawmakers approved a $50 million “Trump-proofing” package of bills. Half those funds, Assembly member Chris Rogers said at the time, were designed to fend off any mass deportations the administration might attempt, with the other half going toward “community-based immigration services.”
Holmes, who spent time Thursday speaking with state representatives, said that her hopes for assistance from the state and county were “still very much there.”
But Catholic Charities isn’t waiting around for that money to materialize. Preparing themselves for the possibility of losing that federal grant, Holmes and her colleagues have been working on a Fund a Future Citizen campaign.
Hopefully, Holmes said, members of the community will “want to have a stake in this defending of human rights.
“It’s an opportunity to participate in helping to keep these families safe, and help them get to a more secure status, as quickly as possible.”
The idea, she said, “is to keep our foot on the gas, and not give in to this funding pressure.”
You can reach Staff Writer Austin Murphy at austin.murphy@pressdemocrat.com or on Twitter @ausmurph88.
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