OPEN LETTER TO THE USCCB
EXTEND SAFE ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION TO UNACCOMPANIED ALIEN CHILDREN (UAC)
~ The horrific exploitation of children illegally trafficked into the United States is the subject of hearings before Congressional Judiciary Committees – it is a matter of time before a journalist or the Judiciary Committees identify the role of the Catholic Church in this historic travesty.
Your Excellencies,
As you gather to meet in Baltimore, I pray that you will elevate consideration of the safety of the unaccompanied migrant children who have passed through, or are in, the care of the U.S. Catholic Church. These children are referred to as Unaccompanied Alien Children under the USCCB funding from the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and are known within USCCB as “UACs”.
More accurately, they are children illegally trafficked into the United States, whether by familial adults, coyotes, or cartels. They are not aliens; they are children separated from their families and communities, ushered by adults to rugged and perilous territory to cross an international border alone. They have come in the hundreds of thousands, already victims, and gravely vulnerable to further exploitation and abuse. Undisclosed numbers have passed through, or are in, the care of the Catholic Church through its ministries for UACs.
Our Church has developed deep expertise in creating and maintaining a “Safe Environment” for children, an expertise born from the darkest hours of disregard for the well-being of children in our care. The acceptance of responsibility for the consequences of this disregard, legally, financially, and morally, has challenged the Church dearly – but transparency, reparations, and prevention, all with the involvement of lay expertise, has brought hope and light following this dark and costly period of failure.
Our Church must immediately tap and deploy this expertise in view of the gravity of harm being done to unaccompanied migrant children and the USCCB’s role as partner with the ORR in processing, placing, and monitoring these children.
- The USCCB identifies itself as a partner with the federal agencies providing services to unaccompanied minor children.
How many unaccompanied children has the USCCB assisted in its partnership with the ORR and how many of these children have been exploited because of improper placements, failure to provide services or negligent monitoring?
On November 9, 2023, the USCCB Committee on Migration released a form letter – not to the millions of faithful who have answered your call to welcome the stranger – but to “Dear Senator/Representative.” This letter acknowledged “emerging reports” of “incidents of migrant children in the United States suffering exploitative labor conditions and other harmful situations.” Attached to the letter, the Committee proposed a ten point funding plan, largely focused on ORR, to increase services for these children and detection of abuse.
The Committee on Migration’s letter confirms that the USCCB’s Department of Migration and Refugee Services (MRS), along with a network of local Catholic service providers (which include numerous Catholic Charities agencies) “have long partnered with the federal government” in serving migrant children. As you are aware, the USCCB has received contracts from the federal government of approximately $25,000,000 in several successive years to provide services to the subset of minors who have illegally crossed the border without parents, family, or other adults.
How many unaccompanied children has the USCCB assisted in its partnership with the ORR, and whether any of these children have been exploited because of improper placements, failure to provide services or negligent monitoring, is information the MRS, the Committee on Migration and the USCCB do not release. But, in view of the 130,000 unaccompanied minors who entered federal care in 2022, the numbers who have passed through Catholic services into their placements is certainly substantial.
- Revelations of the grave harm done to exploited migrant children are emerging rapidly in the media and political circles.
It is just a matter of time before a journalist or the Congressional Judiciary Committees identify the role of the Catholic Church in this historic scandal.
To be clear, the “incidents” referenced by the USCCB Committee on Migration entail widespread child exploitation – documented by Hannah Drier of the New York Time in February 2023. The “incidents” include trafficking, labor exploitation and sexual exploitation. Two (now fired) ORR whistleblowers and one expert testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity on April 26, 2023, in harrowing detail. Whistleblower Tara Lee Rodas concluded that the “US government has become the middleman in a large scale, multi-billion-dollar, child trafficking operation.”
It is critical that we not whitewash with obtuse language the gravity of mistreatment of children illegally trafficked into the United States. We must call the “incidents” what they are: child abuse occurring in the journey to the United States border and abuse in the placements of these unaccompanied minors – all arguably facilitated and enabled by the critical role the MRS and its network of Catholic agency play. (For a fuller summary of the information which has become public regarding abuse of unaccompanied migrant children, see https://thechristianreview.com/are-the-us-bishops-covering-up-child-exploitation-again).
The horrific reality of exploitation of children illegally trafficked into the United States has become the subject of hearings before Congress. The Senate Judiciary Committee conducted the most recent hearing on October 25, 2023. The testimony of Robin Dunn Marcos, Director of ORR was met with bipartisan outrage at the “assembly line” approach to moving these vulnerable children into the care of poorly vetted individuals with little-to-no follow up or monitoring. (See https://www.c-span.org/video/?531369-1/federal-officials-testify-unaccompanied-migrant-children) .
It is just a matter of time before a journalist or the Congressional Judiciary Committees identify the role of the Catholic Church in this historic scandal.
- The USCCB must get ahead of the scandal by pausing its partnership with the government and following its own Safe Environment protocols.
The responsibilities of the Church to these children are our own to fulfill – morally, legally, and canonically – not limited by the terms of a contract with the federal government.
In its letter, the Committee on Migration focused on what the ORR and the federal government should do to meliorate, prevent, and detect the exploitation of these vulnerable children.
Now the USCCB and the Committee on Migration should do the same for the USCCB’s UAC ministries and programs, drawing upon the experience and expertise of Safe Environment professionals throughout the United States Catholic Church. The Conference of Major Superiors of Men (CMSM), in its partnership with Praesidium, has accumulated a wealth of information and successfully developed Safe Environment protocols to eradicate the scourge of child abuse. The USCCB should seek input from lay professionals to review and assess the USCCB policies and any resulting liabilities which might arise from the Church’s partnership with the admitted failures in the placement programs of ORR.
The USCCB’s responsibility and exposure for failed safe environments for these children extends beyond its partnership with ORR. While the USCCB funds its UAC ministries under contract with the government, it also solicits grants and donations, as well as volunteers, from the faithful. The responsibilities of the Church to these children are our own to fulfill, morally and canonically, not limited by the terms of a contract with the federal government or by a cap on funds ORR pays to the Church. Nor is it sufficient for the Church to blame ORR, or some other entity, for the exploitation of a child by a sponsor who could not pass our bare minimum Safe Environment standards. Like any student in a Catholic school, or patient at a Catholic hospital, or child volunteer at a parish ministry, the Church’s promise of a Safe Environment must extend to the unaccompanied migrant child for whom we assume care.
We all respect the work of the Committee on Migration to combat exploitation of unaccompanied minors; and we pray that additional funds and programs for the ORR are forthcoming and effective. Yet, additional ORR programs and funding in no way address the Church’s responsibilities to these children and the extent to which we have – and are – failing them, as we did the children abused by clergy. That Bishops relied then upon mental health professionals’ opinions regarding the danger posed by individual priests should offer warning that reliance upon ORR or other agencies’ assurances that an environment is safe for children is ill-placed. It is for the Church alone to ensure that its own moral, legal, and canonical obligations are met.
- Action Items For Immediate Consideration
Please do not let the faithful wake up again – a week, 6 months, or 2 years from now – to another devasting headline, “Church Allowed Exploitation of Unaccompanied Minors.”
Fortunately, the Church has all the resources it needs at hand. I respectfully request the conference to consider the following action items to both abate further abuse of children trafficked into the US and to take responsibility for any such abuse the Church may have enabled.
- Suspend the partnership with ORR with respect to unaccompanied minor children until the USCCB and the Committee on Migration have a) assessed the extent of exploitation of children who have passed through or are in our care, and b) set in place its own independent criteria and oversight mechanisms for ensuring a Safe Environment for each child served.
- As the Church’s training and programming to reduce child abuse has dramatically reduced complaints, safe environment coordinators should be deployed into the UAC ministries to assist in developing and implementing Safe Environment standards and protocols and address incidents of exploitation. These professionals are uniquely qualified in identifying children subjected to exploitation and reducing risks of such abuse.
- Audit all cases of unaccompanied children we have served to assess their well-being and safety. Implement a remedial protocol for any child who cannot be located or is suspected to be a victim of exploitation. This must include mandatory referral to local law enforcement.
- Form a lay task force/review board to confer with and advise the Committee on Migration on both policy and individual cases involving children trafficked into the United States who passed through the care of the Catholic Church. Using the model of typical lay review boards, such an advisory board can provide expertise and lay input into policy and individual cases when complaints/inquiries are received.
On January 6, 2002, American Catholics awoke to the first of a series of articles conducted by the Boston Globe Spotlight team, “Church Allowed Abuse By Priest for Years.” That series shocked the faithful and opened an era of turmoil, reflection, and contrition and reparations.
Please do not let us wake up again – a week, 6 months, or 2 years from now – to another devastating headline, “Church Allowed Exploitation of Unaccompanied Minors.”
It is far better to alert the faithful, seek our assistance and change course to protect and restore unaccompanied minor children under our Safe Environment protocols than to naively hope no one will notice ORR’s partner … the Catholic Church.
Sincerely In Christ,
Marjorie Murphy Campbell, JD, LlM, JCL
Park City, Utah