Rescissions Act of 2025

Floor Speech

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Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, the good news is that I am the last speaker of the day. I wish I could tell you my speech will be short. I don't think it will be long, but I will try to make it interesting.

I want to tell you a story. It is not a story about anything that has happened in this building. It is a story about a very humble Catholic parish in Northside Richmond, VA, called St. Elizabeth of Hungary. It is a humble parish. It is a small parish. It is slightly over 100 years old. It is the church where my wife and I were married more than 40 years ago, where all three of our children were baptized, where we attended Mass just this last Sunday to hear the Gospel reading of the story of the Good Samaritan.

The church was founded more than 100 years ago in an unusual way. There were Italian and German immigrants in Richmond who felt looked down upon because of where they had come from and because of the accents that they spoke with and that their English wasn't so good.

In the aftermath of World War I, people looked at German-Americans and Italian-Americans with some suspicion. German language was being criminalized in some of our States in the aftermath.

These immigrant refugee Catholics decided that they wanted a place where they could feel welcomed, loved, and safe as they worshipped in accord with the American value of freedom of worship. So they set up this little parish in the Highland Park neighborhood of Northside Richmond, VA, where they could go and be together and feel safe. They chose an interesting name, St. Elizabeth of Hungary.

St. Elizabeth of Hungary lived 1,000 years ago. She was a teenager, and she was a queen in a time of great poverty. Against the wishes of her husband and other officials, she would take bread and put the bread inside of her garments and go out and distribute it to the poor.

Once, she was caught, and she was made to open her garment, and when she did open her garment, the bread had turned into roses. That is the miracle that was attributed to her. She lived only a short time and died, but she was made a saint by the Catholic Church.

These immigrants who started my parish chose that name because they felt like that was what was needed in the world--people who would try to serve others in need.

One hundred years later--we celebrated the centennial of my church a couple of years ago, and I was sitting there--I have now been a member of the parish for 40 years--and I was looking around, and I realized that times change and they don't.

Catholic Relief Services, which is one of the largest agencies in the United States that help settle refugees, who are legal immigrants-- refugees are legal immigrants--about 15 years ago settled a Congolese family into my church who had been in a refugee camp after fleeing violence in the Congo. Catholic, French, and Swahili speaking, one Congolese family came to my church. Then, over time, Catholic Relief Services decided ``Well this family likes St. Elizabeth, and they feel welcomed here,'' and other families started to come to my church.

So by now, as we were celebrating our centennial and I was looking around the parish where I go--this small, very humble parish--it is a sizably Congolese refugee population, legal immigrants to the United States who have been settled through the Catholic Relief Services, and they have come to a place where they feel loved and cared for and safe and welcomed. The color of their skin, the accent they use, and the fact that they are unfamiliar with American culture might make them feel not so welcomed in other venues, but in my church, they feel welcomed.

It made me realize as we celebrated that centennial that my church looks really different in some ways than when it was founded 100 years ago, but in other ways, it is exactly the same. It is a haven for people who are legal immigrants to the United States but need a place where they can gather with others and feel welcomed.

Why do I tell that story? How is it connected to the rescission bill that we are going to be voting on tomorrow?

President Trump has sent a bill to Congress, and one of the pillars of that bill is to rescind the funding for refugee resettlement programs in the United States run by churches. Seven of the ten organizations that resettle refugees in the United States are faith- based organizations. The largest two are the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, operating through the Catholic Relief Services, and the evangelical organization World Vision.

But it is not just them. There is Church World Service, Lutheran Social Services, the Episcopal Church of the United States, and World Relief. The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society was founded more than 100 years ago to try to bring Jews at that point from Europe to the United States and make sure that, as legal immigrants--yes, they would be allowed to be here legally, but they needed someone to teach them about American culture and integrating into American life.

The practice of American religious organizations assisting in legal immigration goes back more than a century, and President Trump's rescission package that is before us wipes out funding to a dramatic degree for virtually all of them.

Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society has had to lay off hundreds of staff.

World Relief said this:

President Trump [has] said he will defend persecuted Christians. [But] the U.S. refugee resettlement program is one of the primary ways that the U.S. government protects Christians and others fleeing persecution.

The Episcopal Church of the United States has had to end its longstanding refugee resettlement program because of President Trump's budget cuts.

Lutheran Social Services has had to--they have struggled to make payroll. They have had to lay off so many people. They reduced the services they are able to provide, especially to Afghan allies who are in the United States because they worked with the U.S. military in Afghanistan to protect our troops.

Catholic Charities has laid off all kinds of staff.

The families at my church come up to me after mass on Sunday, and they are so frightened about what might happen because many of them have family still in refugee camps who might want to come here as legal refugees, as legal immigrants.

I don't know of a President who has attacked religious organizations--Catholic, evangelical, Jewish--that have been doing this work in many instances for more than a century, in such an orchestrated, intentional, and calculated way as President Trump.

Matthew: ``I was a stranger and you welcomed me in. I was sick and you cared for me. I was hungry and you fed me.'' This is a bedrock belief of our Nation's religious organizations: that they will follow the law--legal refugee program--but they will help the person who is accessing legal refugee programs to be able to integrate into a society so they can live with some sense of dignity and have some chance of success.

Why cut these programs? Why look in the face of these religious organizations that, out of a motivation of conscience, for decades, even a century, have decided that they will try to smooth that path to integrate people into American life who are here lawfully? Why cut their funding? Why force them to be laid off? Why debilitate their ability to provide services? It is an attack on the religious organizations so that they cannot do the work that their faith and their Creator compels them to do.

I am not surprised that President Trump would propose this. The language and the rhetoric and the behavior that he has exhibited toward even legal refugees, legal immigrants to this country lead me to not be surprised that this important funding is on the chopping block in the bill that he has sent to the Senate. But I have to admit that I am surprised that it seems to be just moving on a path to being accepted. It was accepted in the House without much drama, including by a whole lot of people who go to churches, just like me, and hear sermons preached about the Good Samaritan, just like I do every Sunday.

We will have an opportunity tomorrow to grapple with it here. I intend to at least offer an amendment to try to strip this piece of the bill out so that the bill will not be an attack on religious organizations doing what they feel compelled by their faith to do.

It is my prayer that the entire rescission bill fail for the reasons my colleagues have said--a deal is a deal, and we shouldn't backtrack on it. But if we can't defeat the entire rescission bill, it is my hope that we will allow organizations like Catholic Relief Services and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and the Episcopal Church and World Vision and World Relief and Lutheran Social Services--it is my hope that we will at least allow them to practice the faith they sincerely believe and do it in a way consistent with what their practices have been for decades and in some cases more than a century.

And so that is what I am going to be praying for tonight, that there is a bit of an epiphany in this body, and we realize that the work that these church-based organizations are doing isn't bad. This work isn't something that should be slashed and cut with these valuable faith workers laid off.

My hope is that the Senate will realize this is good work that is really at the core of who we are as Americans--so tiny little parishes like St. Elizabeth of Hungary or synagogues or other churches all over this country who pride themselves on offering a welcoming environment for people who are here lawfully and want to make their way in America will be able to continue to do just that.

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