For nearly a decade, Catholic Charities of East Tennessee has relied on federal funding to provide legal aid to victims of elder abuse, domestic violence and child sexual and physical abuse.
But, earlier this summer, the Knoxville nonprofit was put on notice by the Tennessee Office of Criminal Justice Programs: it could no longer receive public crime victim funding if the crime victims being served were also immigrants.
When agency staff inquired about a new federal grant notice that could sustain their ongoing work with children victimized by physical abuse, sexual abuse, human trafficking and other crimes, they got a similar answer.
“The response we got was that the goal is to serve American children only. American citizen children,” Alessandra Ceccarelli-Masters, the agency’s immigration services manager, said.
It was a blow for the agency, which aids crime victims regardless of immigration status in three dozen east Tennessee counties.
“Why are we differentiating between kids who have gone through the same, horrific experiences?” she said.
“I thought that in a country like the United States we were able, willing and it was one of our values to be able to help survivors of crime, especially children, regardless of their legal status, so it’s very sad to see that they’re imposing these types of restrictions.”
Catholic Charities is among scores of Tennessee nonprofit agencies now contending with a flurry of directives from state and federal officials about who they can and cannot serve as the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration reshapes crime victim funding.
The federal government, through the Department of Justice, is the single largest source of funding for many Tennessee domestic violence shelters, abuse hotlines, sexual assault centers and child counseling services — organizations that generally don’t ask a victim’s immigration status.
Some Tennessee nonprofits rely on federal funding for half or more of their annual operating budgets. Collectively these organizations have served more than 95,000 victims in Tennessee annually.
Nonprofit directors described the volume and, in some instances, vagueness of emails and memos outlining restrictions on serving immigrants — and threatening punitive action against organizations for noncompliance — as destabilizing.
Dismantling programs that have enabled victims to come forward will only hamper the ability to hold perpetrators accountable, contrary to the Trump administration’s stated tough-on-crime goals, they said.
‘Barriers being created at every turn’
In July, the Department of Justice’s Office of Victims of Crime announced that states and nonprofits receiving federal victim grants must agree to support and assist in federal immigration enforcement — including granting entry to their facilities. A coalition of 20 Democratic-led states has filed suit challenging the restrictions.
New grant descriptions subsequently posted online by the Department of Justice require victim-serving nonprofits to describe in writing how they will use federal funds in “supporting law enforcement operations (including immigration law enforcement operations),” “supporting American victims of trafficking and sexual assault,” and “protecting American children.”
On August 22, a memo issued by the Tennessee Office of Criminal Justice Programs warned against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives for nonprofits receiving the federal grants, raising uncertainty about whether agencies that conduct targeted outreach to Black, Hispanic, LGBTQ and other communities to encourage victims to seek help could run afoul of new rules.
Then, late last month the Department of Justice issued a memo to states and nonprofits barring the use of federal dollars to provide legal services to crime who are living in the country illegally, the Reuters news service reported.
Even before the federal directive, the Tennessee Office of Criminal Justice Programs informed nonprofits they could no longer provide legal services to immigrant crime victims with federal grants. The Tennessee Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence, on June 30, shut down a long-running legal clinic that had helped immigrant survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking access visas specifically set aside for victims who cooperated with law enforcement to bring perpetrators to justice.
“There are barriers being created at every turn,” Cecelia Friedman Levin, advocacy coordinator for the Alliance for Immigrant Survivors, a national network of agencies that serve immigrant survivors of violence.
Friedman Levin said that directives jeopardize decades of work by advocates to earn the trust of immigrant crime victims.
“We’re seeing all these safeguards being overshadowed by an enforcement over everything mentality, which means victims don’t feel safe coming out their door to seek help, and their safety is compromised, which makes communities less safe,” she said. “This undermines decades of efforts to make sure survivors know there’s a place for them to go.”
The Department of Justice did not respond last week to Lookout questions about the funding changes.
Survey: Immigrants increasingly hesitant to report crimes
High visibility immigration sweeps across the nation and a proliferation of cooperation agreements between Immigration and Customs Enforcement and local law enforcement are further deterring victims who lack legal immigration status from coming forward, she said.
In Tennessee more than two dozen local sheriff and police departments have entered into so-called 287(g) agreements with federal officials to serve immigration warrants, jail immigrants or operate enhanced task forces that give local law enforcement immigration enforcement powers since the beginning of the second Trump administration. The Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security has also entered into an agreement.
Separately, Immigration and Customs Enforcement also reversed its longstanding policy of requiring agents to ascertain whether an individual is a crime victim before taking enforcement action.
As a result, victims of crime who lack legal immigration status are increasingly hesitant to report crimes, according to a survey conducted in the Spring by the Alliance for Immigrant Survivors.
Of 170 advocates and attorneys who responded to the survey, half reported immigrant crime victims opted not to contact police, or show up to court out of fear of being swept up.
Officer Mario Diaz, Metro Nashville Police Department’s Hispanic community liaison, said patrol officers have seen the hesitance to call police play out after widely publicized immigration sweeps in the city.
In May, mass traffic stops conducted by the Tennessee Highway Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Nashville’s heavily immigrant south side resulted in the detention of about 200 people.
In the weeks that followed, Diaz said, “patrol officers were telling me ‘hey, we’re not getting any calls for service in particular neighborhoods.”
The calls for services have since returned to normal levels, but Diaz said “people are obviously more concerned and more worried.”
The Nashville police department has not entered into any agreement with the federal government to enforce immigration laws, a message Diaz said he has found himself repeating more this year.
“People will say to me I saw Metro police make a traffic stop,” he said. “Are you guys collaborating with ICE? Those questions I’ve never been asked before. People are more worried and more alert.”
Tennessee nonprofit organization leaders also expressed worries that speaking out against new immigration restrictions on federal funding could further hobble their ability to carry out their mission of aiding victims. A half dozen nonprofit directors contacted by the Lookout declined to speak publicly about the impact of new federal funding restrictions on the adult and child victims they serve.
Ceccarelli-Masters, Catholic Charities’ immigration services manager, said her agency was also initially reluctant to speak up about the new limits imposted on their ability to serve victims. Catholic Charities will continue to provide the same services to victims regardless of immigration status, but rely on sliding scale fees and non-public funding to do so, she said.
“In February, March, we were a bit reluctant to talk to journalists because we did not want to draw too much attention to the work we do,” she said. “But I think it’s important to let people know what’s happening now. The consequences of the policies that this administration is administering is that we’re not able to provide services to survivors who are not citizens. It’s shortsighted. We’re setting ourselves up for circles of violence to continue.”
This article was originally published by the Tennessee Lookout.
