US Catholic Bishops Face Federal Investigation Over Billions in Illegal Immigration Funding
Probe accuses Catholic Charities and 200 NGOs of helping “to fuel the worst border crisis” in nation’s history
The United States Catholic Conference of Bishops (USCCB) and Catholic Charities (CCU) — the domestic charity wing of the U.S. Catholic Church — are among 200 NGOs facing a federal investigation over the misuse of taxpayer funding to facilitate illegal immigration.
The U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security and the Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability announced the probe in a June 11 statement, accusing the USCCB and CCU of colluding with the Biden administration in “helping to fuel the worst border crisis in our nation’s history.”
While “human trafficking flourished, deadly drugs poured into towns across the United States, and the safety of Americans was increasingly threatened,” the “same NGOs saw their annual revenues rise significantly,” a letter from the chairmen of both House committees stated.
According to the statement, NGOs like the USCCB and CCU used “U.S. taxpayer money to enable the Biden border crisis by incentivizing and facilitating illegal immigration, placing our homeland security at risk and encouraging unprecedented levels of human trafficking and smuggling.”
Where Has the Money Gone?
The letter sent to the NGOs lamented “the near-total lack of accountability” for the “billions of dollars” the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) funneled to the aid agencies under Joe Biden.
As an example, the letter cited the Office of the Inspector General’s 2023 DHS audit, which found that FEMA gave millions of dollars to the NGOs. However, the OIG “could not account for more than half of the funding” due to a “lack of proper documentation by these groups.”
Federal funding for NGOs including the USCCB and CCU “created a pull factor by signaling to those who arrived illegally or without proper documentation that they could expect such assistance, all expensed to American taxpayers, once they arrived in the United States,” it stated.
According to figures from the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, more than 10.9 million inadmissible aliens, including some 550,000 unaccompanied children, entered the USA illegally between February 2021 and January 2025, the letter noted.
Attaching a survey the NGOs were required to fill in before June 24, the letter warned that “some of these NGOs may currently be actively advising and training illegal aliens on strategies to avoid cooperation with immigration officials.”
Catholic Leaders Urged RICO Investigation into US Bishops
Earlier this year, prominent lay Catholics urged Vice President J.D. Vance, a practicing Catholic, to investigate the U.S. bishops under the provisions of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) — a law first used to prosecute the Mafia in the 1970s.
“We request that a RICO investigation be undertaken into how the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) dispersed funds received from USAID,” a cohort of Catholic scholars, journalists, and victims of clerical sex abuse wrote in a March 8 letter to Vance.
The signatories noted that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has already
discovered that an obscene amount of funds has been given to the Catholic Church through its various organizations to help settle refugees and immigrants.
How many illegal immigrants did they assist? Did any of the funds end up in the hands of cartels who are involved in criminal behavior such as sex trafficking and the smuggling of Fentanyl? What did they do to protect vulnerable children and women?
Monsignor Gene Gomulka, a clerical sex abuse investigator and former Navy chaplain, cowrote the letter. “The way the bishops failed to accept responsibility for what happened to the countless ‘lost’ migrant children is similar to the way they covered up the sexual predation of minors and vulnerable adults in their dioceses,” he told The Stream.
Bishops Benefited from Biden
As The Stream reported last September, CCU, which operates under the jurisdiction of the U.S. bishops, received nearly $1 billion from taxpayers via the Biden administration to facilitate illegal immigration.
Financial documents show that government grants for CCU nearly quadrupled after Biden took office in 2021, with most of the funds directed to the charity’s immigration services — especially its operations near the southern U.S. border.
The Biden administration provided the USCCB with more than $100 million annually, which the bishops allocated to affiliated Catholic nongovernmental organizations, according to the USCCB’s audited financial statements.
In February, Corpus Christi for Unity and Peace reported that the USCCB and CCU have received $449 million in total to shelter and transport unaccompanied migrant children.
According to an article published in the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal as far back as 2000, Catholic Charities “has become over the last three decades an arm of the welfare state, with 65 percent of its $2.3 billion annual budget now flowing from government sources and little that is explicitly religious, or even values-laden, about most of the services its 1,400 member agencies and 46,000 paid employees provide.”
It’s also a cash cow for its administrators. In 2019, Catholic Charities paid its president $521,554 and its CFO $310,000, according to Forbes. In 2024, Salary.com reported that the optimal compensation range for a president and CEO at CCU is between $640,308 and $1,075,827, with an average annual salary of $842,554. By comparison, the current salary for the U.S. president, which has remained unchanged for the last 20 years, is $400,000.
Catholic Agency Operating as a “Criminal Enterprise”
In May 2024, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched a probe into Annunciation House, a leading Catholic charity supported by the USCCB, for “planning and facilitating” illegal border crossings from Mexico into the US and operating as a “criminal enterprise.”
Paxton said his office had “obtained sworn testimony indicating that Annunciation House’s operations are designed to facilitate illegal border crossings and to conceal illegally present aliens from law enforcement.” The charity refused to release the documents Paxton requested. Instead, it sued the Office of the Attorney General.
In February, the USCCB sued the Trump administration after it suspended $65 million in federal funding to the bishops’ charities involved in resettling refugees. Two months later, after losing the lawsuit, the bishops announced their decision not to renew their agreements with the federal government related to children’s services and refugee support.
Meanwhile, Fr. Michael Pham, the first U.S. bishop appointed by Pope Leo XIV, is urging priests, deacons, and parish leaders to accompany migrants to court and stand in solidarity with them. Pham, who was named bishop of San Diego, California, is a refugee from South Vietnam.
In a recent column, Stream Senior Editor John Zmirak suggested that such activist clergy “should renounce their U.S. citizenship, and insist on being deported along with the illegal aliens.”
But of course none of them will do that. Instead they will take full advantage of their status as U.S. citizens in a tax-exempt organization that receives hundreds of millions of federal dollars each year to process immigrants to help frustrate the enforcement of just, bipartisan, democratically enacted immigration laws.
Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV have both supported the US bishops in campaigning for looser restrictions on illegal aliens and on opening the borders to let in undocumented migrants.
On Pentecost Sunday, Leo remarked that “the Spirit opens borders, first of all, in our hearts,’” then in one’s relationships with others and, finally, between peoples. The pope repeated the word “borders” 11 times in his sermon.
“Let us invoke the spirit of love and peace, that he may open borders, break down walls, dispel hatred and help us to live as children of our one Father who is in Heaven,” Leo preached.
Dr. Jules Gomes (BA, BD, MTh, PhD) has a doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Cambridge. Currently a Vatican-accredited journalist based in Rome, he is the author of five books and several academic articles. Gomes lectured at Catholic and Protestant seminaries and universities and was canon theologian and artistic director at Liverpool Cathedral.