Another San Diego-area charity is being forced to lay off its employees. Catholic Charities of San Diego says it’s letting dozens of its workers go because of the Trump administration’s immigration policies. NBC 7’s Omari Fleming reports.
Catholic Charities of San Diego is putting the brakes on the busloads of asylum-seeking migrants it was taking to its Mission Valley shelter.
Now that there's been a major border policy shift under President Donald Trump, the non-profit's CEO says their contact with migrants at the border has dropped from an average of about 400-people a day, to just a handful a week.
“There's not a humanitarian crisis," said Vino Pajanor, Catholic Charities CEO. "For us, we have to always be responsible and accountable to the tax dollars that are invested into us as an agency."
With the Trump administration freezing federal funding and cracking down at the border, Pajanor says the charity is now being forced to lay off people working in two of its migrant programs: refugee services and its migrant respite shelter.
Get top local stories in San Diego delivered to you every morning. Sign up for NBC San Diego's News Headlines newsletter.
"We need to close down operations and scale it down — still have a presence when it is needed, but not at this scale," Pajanor said of the charity's previous 800-bed capacity.
The changes mean around 42 people working in those programs in San Diego will be laid off. Another 31 will lose their jobs in Imperial County.
It's a trend happening at Catholic Charities across the country.
Local
Pajanor says that although he's sad to see them potentially leave, released employees are being offered other opportunities in the company.
“Pantries. We have low-income senior housing. We have homeless shelter. We have so many other programs, so these individuals are given first dibs at all the openings around the agency," Pajanor said.
At the peak of the migrant surge, Pajanor says the federal government gave them about $9 million worth of their $46 million budget for the year.
Over a four-year period of time, Catholic Charities says it’s served 405,000 migrants from 146 countries.
Tessla Tinkler is the director of research for an organization that's tracking the funding cuts on nonprofits.
"Seventy-two percent, so nearly three-quarters, reported that they either had direct impacts already, or they were anticipating impacts very soon. Nearly a third have already had to modify programs, or in some cases even discontinue some services and programs," Tinkler explained.
With the federal funding freeze, Pajanor says his organization is pivoting in order to find funding.
"How can we support these individuals in a way through private philanthropy, through foundations coming and helping us, with the community wrapping themselves around us?" Pajanor said.
The layoffs are scheduled to go into effect at the end of April.
Jewish Family Services has also announced potential layoffs for their migrant shelter workers.
