After funding freeze, refugee dollars flowing to Texas again but program's fate uncertain
Austin American-Statesman - Austin, TX
by Emiliano Tahui Gómez
March 19, 2025
“After a six-week federal funding freeze that decimated refugee services in Texas, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Monday released $47 million to the state’s refugee services designee.
The health department, which includes the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, stopped sending such reimbursements to states across the country in early February. For reasons that remain unclear, the pause continued in Texas even after all other states started receiving reimbursements again.
That prompted a lawsuit from the Catholic Charities of Fort Worth, which runs the nonprofit Texas Office for Refugees, the designee that distributes reimbursements to the state’s 29 refugee services providers. At a hearing in the case last Friday, a Justice Department lawyer announced that the agency had completed an unspecified type of review of the nonprofit office and of Catholic Charities – a process that had apparently delayed the release of funds – and would soon send money to cover the requested reimbursements.”
