Casar, Doggett and other Texas Democrats demand release of $42M in federal refugee funds
Texas Congressional Democrats are calling on the federal government to release the funds it has withheld from the organization that is in charge of distributing reimbursement to the state's refugee service providers.
In a Thursday letter to the Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. representatives including Greg Casar and Lloyd Doggett of Austin demanded that the administration's Office of Refugee Resettlement immediately release contractually obligated funding to the nonprofit Texas Office for Refugees.
'If funding is not restored immediately, hundreds of thousands of refugees across the state could be permanently left without crucial medical services, basic shelter, and legal support,' according to the letter, which also was signed by Democratic Reps. Julie Johnson of Farmers Branch, Al Green of Houston, Veronica Escobar of El Paso, Sylvia Garcia of Houston, Lizzie Fletcher of Houston and Joaquin Castro of San Antonio.
Previously: Refugees in Austin, across Texas, still struggling amid mysterious pause in federal funding
The letter comes after numerous American-Statesman reports that revealed the ongoing funding freeze, its dire impact on the state's service providers and refugee community; and a lawsuit that the Texas Office for Refugees filed against the U.S. health department to force release of $42 million in funds.
The office, which is run by Catholic Charities of Fort Worth, oversees federally sponsored refugee services in Texas. (The state withdrew from the federal refugee resettlement program in 2016.) Thursday's letter warned that the office may be forced to close by March 15 if funds remain unfrozen.
The letter comes the day after a preliminary hearing in the refugee office's federal lawsuit, where a lawyer for the health department promised that funds would be 'released in a matter of days,' but did not provide a firm timeline.
The lawsuit alleges that Texas is the only state where federal reimbursement has not resumed since Feb. 3 when the health department issued a directive pausing funds to states refugee service programs.
On Wednesday the health department released a declaration at the request of U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan confirming that Texas was indeed the only state where the freeze is effectively still in place.
Agency lawyers also made it clear that it was intentional.
In other court filings, the health department pointed to a Florida grand jury report on fraud and waste in that state's unaccompanied minor's reception program as reason for the ongoing pause in Texas refugee payments. That program is unrelated to refugee service programs.
At Wednesday's hearing, government lawyer Joseph F. Carilli, Jr. argued that the pause was under the government's purview, and that forcing the state to release the funds would take away the authority of the federal government to review any of its contracts before completion.
The review of the Texas Office for Refugees 'is still ongoing,' Carilli said. 'They can't provide at this point in time anything certain as to when it would conclude.'
AliKhan has not yet issued a ruling. Late last month, she ruled against the Trump administration in withholding billions in foreign aid payments, which fund refugee resettlement programs in the United States. The U.S. Supreme Court sided with her ruling last week.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas Democrats demand release of $42M in federal refugee funds
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