After two weeks of legal back and forth over paused federal refugee resettlement funding, Catholic Charities Fort Worth has received $47 million that has been in limbo since January, according to court records.
In a joint status report filed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and attorneys for Catholic Charities, the government said it has authorized all grant payment requests by the Fort Worth nonprofit as of March 17.
The Fort Worth nonprofit has operated the Texas Office for Refugees, the statewide agency designated by the federal government to lead refugee resettlement, since 2021. Texas withdrew from the nation’s refugee resettlement program in 2016, effectively leaving nonprofits to administer federal refugee funds.
The charity confirmed it received over $47 million in its bank account Monday, accounting for funds that the nonprofit requested from Jan. 29 to March 14, according to court records.
The deposited funds came days after the charity warned it could have laid off 169 employees, according to a notification the charity submitted to the Texas Workforce Commission. The funding pause led to hundreds of layoffs across at least 24 refugee agency partners that receive grants through Catholic Charities, according to the lawsuit.
Catholic Charities Fort Worth did not respond to questions about whether the deposit meant the charity would no longer face layoffs by time of publication.
After the Trump administration announced and then reversed a federal funding pause in January, Catholic Charities Fort Worth said many other organizations received their allocated funds while their payment requests went unanswered. U.S. attorneys later acknowledged that of the 50 jurisdictions where the federal government funds refugee services, only the grant in Texas — administered by Catholic Charities Fort Worth — remained paused through March.
As a result, the organization filed a March 3 suit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., accusing the government of unlawfully freezing grants that were allocated to the refugee resettlement program.
In a court filing, the government said it flagged Catholic Charities for a “program integrity review” and paused its funding to explore whether the organization “billed for activities that were outside the scope” of its grants and whether the grants were structured to pay for activities that exceeded the requirements of the Refugee Act of 1980.
By March 14, the government had completed its review of the grant given to Catholic Charities, the Fort Worth Report previously reported.
All pending payment requests were expected to be processed within the next 48 business hours, according to a March 14 statement by Michael Iglio, CEO of Catholic Charities Fort Worth, and Jeff Demers, state refugee coordinator of Texas Office for Refugees.
“The anticipated release of these funds marks a pivotal step toward restoring and enhancing the support systems that empower individuals and families to achieve self-sufficiency and build successful lives within our communities,” Iglio and Demers said in the statement.
Catholic Charities Fort Worth submitted two additional grant payment requests on March 17, according to court records, including one for $250,578.48 and another for $17,483.99.
The nonprofit is expected to report to the court on the status of the payments as part of a joint status report due March 19.
Marissa Greene is a Report for America corps member, covering faith for the Fort Worth Report. You can contact her at marissa.greene@fortworthreport.org.
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This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.