Catholic NGOs, Other Aid Agencies Urge U.S. to Restore Funding for Critical Humanitarian Programs
They say terminating most foreign aid contracts jeopardizes the lives of millions of impoverished people.
By Gary Gately
The Trump administration’s decision to permanently terminate over 90% of U.S. Agency for International Development contracts jeopardizes the lives of millions of the world’s most impoverished people, the Vatican’s international charity organization and numerous other aid groups warned.
Aid agencies and their partners across the globe expressed shock and alarm after receiving emailed notices that funding for their programs was being terminated because the programs are “not in the national interest.”
For decades, the programs have fought famine, alleviated poverty, delivered lifesaving healthcare, provided shelter to the displaced, assisted victims of disasters, and fostered peace, stability and sustainability.
“This is ripping the guts out of global international assistance, abandoning people in crises throughout the world, with dire consequences for millions of lives,” Alistair Dutton, secretary general of Caritas Internationalis, the Vatican’s chief aid agency, told The Catholic Observer. “The widespread harm it creates is not some future possibility; it is happening now. This will kill millions of people.”
Dutton, whose confederation of 162 Catholic relief, development and social service organizations operates in more than 200 countries, pointed to dire repercussions of the dismantling of the 63-year-old USAID:
Critical food assistance programs have been suspended in the Middle East and East Africa, pushing millions of people to the brink of starvation as the United Nations warns of the prospect of “mass deaths from famine” in Sudan.
Syrian refugees in camps have been deprived of essential water supplies, threatening millions of lives.
Healthcare programs providing vaccines, maternal care and life-saving medications have been sharply curtailed in Africa and elsewhere.
HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis prevention and treatment programs have shut down, which Dutton said will dramatically increase mortality rates.
About 1.2 million people have lost lifesaving assistance in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where violent conflict has sent millions fleeing to overcrowded displacement camps beset by dire shortages of food and clean water.
In Bangladesh, projects that reduce the impacts of frequent natural disasters such as cyclones and flooding and provide food, water and shelter to victims have ceased.
“Turning away from the world’s most vulnerable is not just strategically reckless — endangering peace, stability and human life — it is morally indefensible,” Dutton said. “Now is the moment for leadership that prioritizes compassion, solidarity and a shared vision for a better world. We must not forsake those who need us most.”
Caritas, like other aid organizations, including Catholic Relief Services (CRS), along with U.S. bishops, urged the Trump administration to reconsider the decision to permanently eliminate 5,800 multi-year USAID contracts worth $54 billion and another 4,100 in State Department foreign aid contracts worth $4.4 billion.
The deep cuts in foreign humanitarian aid spending could prove devastating for CRS, which was founded by U.S. bishops in 1943 to aid migrants and refugees in Europe and now serves 255 million of the poorest and most vulnerable people in 122 countries. CRS, the top recipient of USAID funds, relied on the agency for roughly half its $1.5 billion budget in 2023.
CRS and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said in an email blast Saturday: “As food distributions are halted, people are going hungry. Without treatment for acute malnutrition, children will die. Entire communities are without shelter and clean water. Mothers and their young children are losing access to critical health care. As a community of faith, we must remember the words of Jesus Christ, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’”
Neither officials at CRS’ Baltimore headquarters nor the USCCB responded to requests for comment about the impacts of the canceled USAID contracts.
But sources knowledgeable about CRS, who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak for the agency, told The Catholic Review that the nonprofit, which employs about 7,000 people, most of them overseas, is bracing for the possibility of hundreds, perhaps even thousands of layoffs and the elimination of programs in Latin America, Africa, Asia, Gaza and Ukraine.
Carolyn Woo, who served as the CEO of CRS from 2012-2016 and as a member of its board of directors for six years before that, said USAID foreign aid has played a major role in reducing poverty from one-third of the global population to one-tenth while halving maternal and infant mortality rates, nearly eradicating smallpox and polio and preventing millions of deaths from hunger and diseases.
Woo told The Catholic Observer that USAID, whose $43 billion annual budget represented less than 1% of the total U.S. budget in fiscal year 2023, is a good investment for America by many measures: “The impact of each dollar spent on aid is immense: making food available for another day for a family; getting a malnourished child back up to appropriate level of growth; administering medicine, treatments and monitoring programs to prevent incidences and death from diseases including malaria, AIDS and Ebola; getting proper seeds planted into healthy soil to produce food and foster livelihoods; establishing water systems to support human and plant life. Aid for these programs directly shape people’s chances of survival, flourishing, independence and dignity….
"To everyone responsible for ending these contracts: Could you at least look at the photos of the faces of people whose lifelines are terminated suddenly? Do not turn away from their searing disappointments, the agony in their eyes watching their children die of hunger and their acceptance of a world that abandoned them. They, like Jesus, are on the cross.”
Woo, who before taking the helm at CRS had served for 14 years as dean of the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, said USAID has opened markets for businesses, including American farmers, who have provided much of its food assistance. Like other experts, she also noted that USAID has played a crucial role in building America’s “soft power” — the goodwill and influence the nation builds on the world stage, and dismantling the agency has stoked fears that rivals such as Russia and China will rush to fill the void in such aid.
“Every bag of grain that we send abroad to feed hungry people sends the friendship of the American people and builds trust and stability,” Woo said. “Everyone should speak out against these cuts, and the bishops should show leadership. People’s lives are being decimated, torn apart, and as a nation, our own sense of what we need to do is being corrupted.”
The abrupt cancellation of foreign aid contracts — which also eliminated funding for the USCCB’s refugee resettlement program and some contracts for Jesuit Refugee Service/USA — came little more than a month after President Donald J. Trump ordered a 90-day freeze on foreign aid to review whether the spending is “fully aligned” with U.S. foreign policy.
Trump and Elon Musk, who heads the Department of Government Efficiency, have repeatedly claimed widespread fraud and waste in USAID, without evidence. The Trump administration also says the agency has promoted progressive ideas that run counter to American interests, citing, among others, LGBTQ programs.
The State Department said in an email to The Catholic Observer that it had frozen spending during the 90-day review, except for waivers granted to programs providing critical food and humanitarian aid.
After a federal judge last week ordered the State Department and USAID to halt the spending freeze, the State Department said in the email, “State and USAID moved rapidly to complete the programmatic evaluation” and decided to “expeditiously” terminate contracts “determined to be inconsistent with the national interests of the United States.” (On Friday, the Supreme Court paused the lower court’s order to unfreeze the foreign aid funds.)
In the email, the State Department added: “Every dollar we spend, every program we fund, and every policy we pursue must be justified with the answer to three simple questions: Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Does it make America more prosperous?”
The State Department did not respond to a request for comment on aid groups urging the Trump administration to reinstate the foreign aid contracts.
The department also canceled its contract with the USCCB for refugee resettlement services about a week after the conference sued the Trump administration on February 18 for abruptly halting tens of millions of dollars in funding for refugee resettlement. The USCCB argued that the “arbitrary and capricious” January 24 funding freeze violated federal law and the Constitution and proved “predictably devastating for USCCB and the refugees it supports.”
The lawsuit said the USCCB was still awaiting about $13 million in unpaid reimbursements for work it completed before the funding suspension “with no indication that any future reimbursements will be paid or that the program will ever resume.” The USCCB said in the suit that it was “accruing millions more each week” in costs, without reimbursement.
The funding freeze, the suit said, had forced the USCCB to send layoff notices to 50 employees of its Migration and Refugee Services office, more than half its staff, and threatened support for 6,758 refugees the government had assigned to the USCCB’s care. The USCCB program provides shelter, food, clothing, education and job training to the refugees. All of them vetted and approved by the U.S. government before entering and in the country legally under the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, established by Congress in 1980.
But a federal judge in Washington, D.C., denied the USCCB’s request that the funding be reinstated, including for past obligations while the lawsuit proceeded, ruling that the bishops had not shown “irreparable harm.”
The Justice Department then argued in a court filing that after the cancellation of the federal contracts, the USCCB would have to seek relief in another court, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
Another Catholic aid organization, Jesuit Refugee Service/USA, which has served refugees throughout the world since 1980, said its contracts had been terminated in five countries for programs that had provided:
Protection and care, including foster care, for unaccompanied children in Ethiopia.
Secondary school education in Chad refugee camps.
Food, medications, medical transportation, psychiatric care and emergency cash for medical needs in Iraq.
Medications, psychiatric care, medical transportation and emergency cash assistance for medical needs and food in Uganda.
Housing, emergency medical cash assistance and emergency transportation in Thailand.
“Right now at JRS, we’re trying to get our arms around what the full impacts will be,” Bridget Cusick, JRS/USA marketing and communications director, said in an email to The Catholic Observer. “While there’s no question that premature termination of agreements with the U.S. government stands to be painful, we’re working with generous supporters all around the world, our international office and our board to determine next steps and minimize the negative impacts on the displaced people around the world who we accompany and serve.”
Other aid groups continued to assess the devastating toll of the canceled contracts.
“Women and children will go hungry, food will rot in warehouses while families starve, children will be born with HIV — among other tragedies,” InterAction, an alliance of international and American NGOs, said in a statement. “This needless suffering will not make America safer, stronger, or more prosperous. Rather, it will breed instability, migration and desperation.”
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) which provides humanitarian assistance in more than 40 countries, said 46 of its USAID and State Department contracts had been canceled, disrupting nutrition, healthcare and other emergency services to 2 million impoverished people.
“These are people who depend on the US-funded services for the basics of survival,” said David Miliband, IRC’s president and CEO. “These programs are not just numbers on a spreadsheet; they represent real lives and real futures. The countries affected by these cuts, including Sudan, Yemen and Syria, are home to millions of innocent civilians who are victims of war and disaster.”
Liz Schrayer, president and CEO of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, which promotes U.S. diplomatic and humanitarian initiatives, said: “Gutting nearly all U.S. international assistance programs, dangerously undermines America’s ability to win. Make no mistake that the U.S. is ceding ground to our rivals — China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea — who will exert greater influence around the world at our expense.
“The American people deserve a transparent accounting of what will be lost — on counter-terrorism, global health, food security and competition,” Schrayer added. “In keeping with the moral decency and generosity of the American people, we urge the secretary of state to reverse these decisions and immediately resume life-saving assistance.”
During his 14 years as a Florida senator, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the Catholic son of Cuban immigrants, had repeatedly praised USAID for providing hurricane relief in multiple Latin American countries; combating polio, Ebola and tuberculosis; providing humanitarian assistance to Venezuelan refugees after the reelection of President Nicolás Maduro; ensuring free and fair elections in Burma; and providing Ukraine with humanitarian aid after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Rubio had often praised foreign aid as a key means of advancing U.S. security and economic interests.
As a senator, Rubio also co-sponsored bills to allocate USAID funding to prevent violence; advance women’s rights; protect victims of international human trafficking; combat substance abuse in the Philippines; and expand global access to education.
President John F. Kennedy, the nation’s first Catholic President, signed into law the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 in September of that year, creating USAID.
Laying out his vision for the agency in a message to Congress about five months earlier, Kennedy said: “The 1960's can be, and must be, the crucial 'Decade of Development’ — the period when many less-developed nations make the transition into self-sustained growth….
“To fail to meet those obligations now would be disastrous; and, in the long run, more expensive. For widespread poverty and chaos lead to a collapse of existing political and social structures, which would inevitably invite the advance of totalitarianism into every weak and unstable area. Thus our own security would be endangered and our prosperity imperiled.”