Amid the growing feud with Pope Leo XIV, the Trump administration has ended more than 60 years of federal partnership with the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami. The federal Office of Refugee Resettlement notified the charity in late March of the termination of an $11 million contract to house and resettle thousands of unaccompanied migrant children as first reported on April 15 in the Miami Herald. Essentially the charity ran a federally funded foster care system comparable to those operated by state agencies.
The Catholic Charities program has been recognized for its excellence and has served as a model for other agencies throughout the country. The charity had become a trusted federal partner in 1960 when the charity was called upon to help in the U.S. State Department’s “Operation Pedro Pan” where the charity was asked to give temporary housing and resettle 7,000 of the 14,000 Cuban children who entered the U.S. between 1960 and 1964. Among the alumni of the “Cuban Children’s Program” was the former U.S. Senator Melquiades (Mel) Martinez.
