On March 11, the Department of Homeland Security sent the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande a letter insinuating illegal activities at a diocesan shelter, including human trafficking.
The letter, sent by the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s acting administrator, Cameron Hamilton, states that the Department of Homeland Security, of which FEMA is a part, has “significant concerns” about organizations receiving FEMA grants using those funds to engage in or facilitate “illegal activities.”
Hamilton wrote that such organizations, such as the diocese’s migrant shelter, “may be guilty of encouraging or inducing an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States” and “transporting or moving illegal aliens, harboring, concealing or shielding from detection illegal aliens or applicable conspiracy aiding or abetting.”
In an online video posted on March 14, Bishop Michael Hunn of the Rio Grande diocese said the letter amounted to a not-so-subtle accusation that the diocese was engaged in human trafficking. Hunn did not share the letter with Sojourners. (The Denver Post published a copy of a similar letter.)
“I’m insulted by the insinuation that we have been involved in anything illegal or immoral,” Hunn said in the video after reading excerpts from the letter.