Washington D.C., Mar 14, 2019 / 23:36 pm
A Catholic aid agency is asking Congress to maintain its commitment to international humanitarian funding, after the Trump administration proposed a federal budget that would cut foreign aid by 24 percent.
In a March 12 statement, Catholic Relief Services warned that the Trump administration's fiscal year 2020 budget request "would undermine dramatic progress in global poverty reduction over the past two decades, disproportionately affecting vulnerable and marginalized people."
The budget proposal, released earlier this week, would cut foreign aid by nearly one-quarter, and would combine current departments for international food aid, disaster response, and migrant and refugee assistance.
Given drastic humanitarian crises currently ongoing throughout the world, the U.S. should be increasing, not decreasing, its funding for international aid, a top CRS official told a recent congressional subcommittee.