State Department lifts funding suspension for 2 Jesuit Refugee Service programs

Sudanese refugees who have fled from the war in Sudan get off a truck loaded with families arriving at a transit center for refugees on Feb. 13, 2024. / Credit: LUIS TATO/AFP via Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 7, 2025 / 18:10 pm (CNA).

The State Department has lifted its funding suspension for Jesuit Refugee Services (JRS) USA programs in Colombia and South Sudan.

“Jesuit Refugee Service USA received word today from the State Department Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) that the suspensions of funding of our Colombia and South Sudan programs had been lifted,” Bridget Cusick, a representative for JRS USA, said in a statement emailed to CNA on Friday. 

“South Sudan is a $1.9 million program, and Colombia is a $5 million program,” the email said.

“As of yet, no funds have been flowing to us — neither as a result of the lifted suspensions nor as a result of the SCOTUS decisions earlier this week,” she noted. 

JRS USA carries out its operations in Colombia, South Sudan, Chad, Ethiopia, India, Iraq, South Africa, and Uganda. It provides critical services such as food, medicine, transportation, cash assistance, care for orphans and unaccompanied children, and psychiatric care. JRS USA receives funding from the State Department for its programs through three-year cooperative agreements. 

Cusick told CNA in an interview that JRS received notification last week that the State Department was “seeking to terminate” the cooperative agreements it has for programs in Chad, Ethiopia, India, Iraq, and Uganda. The organization has not been informed of intentions to terminate its cooperative agreement for South Africa. 

Although the Trump administration’s 90-day freeze on foreign aid initially resulted in a total work stoppage across JRS USA’s programs, Cusick said the organization has continued, with limited funding from its board of directors, some of its operations deemed “critical and lifesaving” at a reduced level. 

Prior to the funding freeze, aid from the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migrants for fiscal year 2025 would have totaled over $18 million. In 2024, JRS received $24,049,039 in government funding and $9,224,422 in private donations, according to its financial statements from last year. 

JRS was founded by the then-Superior General of the Society of Jesus Father Pedro Arrupe to serve Vietnamese refugees who fled their home country at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. Gradually, the Jesuit-run organization grew to accommodate refugees from conflicts around the world. The organization was recognized officially by the Vatican in March 2000.