Category Archives: Front Page

Forfeit Not Your Soul

Forfeit Not Your Soul

Authoritarian Takeover of DC is a Crisis for Racial Justice and Democracy

Min. Christian S. Watkins
August 29, 2025

As I stood and bore witness to the Braddock’s Rock unhoused encampment behind the U.S. Institute for Peace of all places, I held a sign that read “What’s This Cost You? Mark 8:36,” referencing Jesus’ question: “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” Concerned clergy and service provider staff convened on August 14 to assisted unhoused neighbors as they relocated. In doing so, we witnessed the crime of Christ being evicted – a violation of our sacred call to care for all people.

In recent weeks, the poorest residents of the city of Washington, D.C.—the heart of U.S. democracy—are being disappeared from our communities: tents torn down and belongings discarded, communities of resilient survival scattered like dust in the wind.

Clergy and service provider staff gather as the Braddock's Rock unhoused encampment is cleared on Aug. 14.

Min. Christian S. Watkins, (second from left) of the NETWORK Government Relations Team joins other clergy and service provider staff as the Braddock’s Rock homeless encampment is cleared on Aug. 14. The move came as part of President Trump’s militarized takeover of Washington, D.C.

And it didn’t stop there. After President Trump issued the Executive Order, collaborating law enforcement agencies intentionally targeted Black and Brown youth navigating the Metro and traversing D.C.’s streets working to deliver food.

The Trump administration wielded emergency powers to unnecessarily federalize the Metropolitan Police Department, deploying National Guard troops and slowly dismantling our sanctuary protections. They initially targeted our unhoused neighbors but soon expanded their scope to hyper-militarize and surveil Black and Brown youth and communities with merciless force. This naked display of power is sinful. God says, “Woe to those who trample on the poor.” (Amos 5:11) 

With President Trump naming only cities with Black mayors for future militarized takeover, it is clear that this is all a manufactured assault on Black political power – as well as a rehearsal for broader authoritarianism to envelop our country. This would decimate our collective future built on Constitutional aspirations and promises.

This unneeded hyper-militarization of a peaceful city is designed to send an authoritarian message rather than address any legitimate community needs. Rather than nurture democracy and the systemically disenfranchised, this misguided show of force is a distraction, a calculated attempt to shift the nation’s gaze away from far more dire crises:

  • Skyrocketing inflation and the international devaluation of the U.S. dollar, which erodes working families’ purchasing power. 
  • Administration ineptitude and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) failures, which leaves core agencies leaderless and ineffective, costing taxpayers more than the agency ever purported to strive to save. 
  • Cratering political support at home and abroad, as allies question America’s stability and credibility as a world leader, much less a moral authority. 

When leaders are cornered by their own failings, they often reach for the oldest tool in the autocrat’s playbook: stoke fear, unleash the military, and change the subject. This takeover is not happening in a vacuum. It is fueled by a Christian nationalist ideology that seeks to merge political power with a narrow, exclusionary version of Christianity.  

True Christian witness calls us to loving service grounded in humility and justice lending to liberation, not to bless state power when it tramples our neighbors, the people Christ admonished us to protect, serve, and defend and the integrity of the Church. If we do not name and resist it, we risk turning the cross of Christ into a banner for empire. 

As people of faith and moral courage, we MUST resist. 

Catholics and faithful allies committed to the common good know you cannot speak of justice when local police accountability is replaced by federal chains of command that answer political power, not community needs. You cannot claim security while criminalizing poverty and erasing the humanity of the unhoused.  

True justice cannot be militaristic or top down. It must be rooted in restorative, community-based care. The federalized, militarized response fractures trust and undermines local accountability. Faithful communities must speak truth to power.

NETWORK’s 2025 Labor Day Statement

NETWORK’s 2025 Labor Day Statement

Showing Up for Workers’ Rights


August 27, 2025

When we serve others, when we create, when we work to contribute to the world around us, we as human beings become more fully alive. Work holds a sense of purpose and dignity that feeds the human soul. That, ultimately, is the purpose of work—to build up, not to reduce human beings to mere producers or commodities.  

The Catholic Church continues to show up to advocate for the rights of workers, most visibly in the 20th century tradition by helping unions to come together, organize, and obtain just wages, benefits, and safe working conditions — all benefits that would allow workers to adequately support their families and be contributors to the community.   

Catholic Sisters continue to show up as part of this faithful solidarity, and with the formation of NETWORK over 50 years ago, Sisters took the work to the next level by directly lobbying for pro-labor federal policies, a practice that continues to this day.  

Sadly, in the decades since then, workers have suffered from the methodical and malicious dismantling of labor unions and ruthless attacks on organized labor. There continues to be a coordinated effort to curtail workers’ rights and put profits over people. Wages have stagnated since the 1970s.   

In many ways, the weakening of unions was an early warning sign of the destruction of government we see today. The second Trump administration is on a mission to destroy any function of government that contributes to human dignity: foreign aid, health care, due process, and yes, workers’ rights.  

Nuns on the Bus & Friends pray at Cesar Chavez grave.

Andres Chavez, Bus Riders, and NETWORK staff pray at the grave of labor leader and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez in Keene, California on an Oct. 16 stop of the Nuns on the Bus & Friends 2024 “Vote Our Future” tour. Photo: Jacob Schatz, CCR Studios

Those who advocate for the dignity of work in the Catholic Social Justice tradition harken back to Pope Leo XIII, as he addressed the radical changes to the world brought by the Industrial Revolution, condemning unjust wages, unsafe working conditions, unbridled capitalism, and anything that risked reducing workers to less than their full dignified humanity. The document in which he addressed these issues—and championed the right of workers to organize—was called Rerum Novarum, Latin for “New Things.”  

Now in the 21st century, another pope, this one aptly named Leo XIV, has taken up the thread and is applying his predecessor’s moral lens to the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI). In this space too, Sisters are showing up to help lead the way. NETWORK’s engagement with AI policy is truly a “new thing” in the church’s support for labor rights. We recognize the risks: cogs and boilers have been replaced by artificial neural networks, data centers, and algorithms. More than 130 years since the warning of Pope Leo XIII, technological innovation again threatens to make humans grist for the machines.  

The emergence of AI is yet another reason why it is urgent that workers organize.   

We cannot shy from these challenges. Rather we must lean into hope. We must hope as the generations before us did with the hope of dignified workers’ rights so that all who toil might be able to share in the richness that God intends for all of us. We must join in solidarity with many unorganized and organized workers today who are beginning to realize their power to come together and bravely demand what is rightfully theirs.

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NETWORK Lobby Advocates for Catholic Social Justice

EPA Tries to Make Environmental Endangerment a Non-Issue

EPA Tries to Make Environmental Endangerment a Non-Issue

We Declare: Not On Our Watch

 

Drake Starling
August 20, 2025

In a move as reckless as it is radical, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin recently announced that the EPA will revoke the Endangerment Finding, the foundational scientific determination that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare.  

The administration’s action is a full-scale assault on clean air, clean water, clean energy, and public health – fundamental basics that we all need to thrive. If finalized, this decision would obliterate the legal basis for federal climate action and, with it, the power to protect people and our planet from pollution, disaster, and exploitation. Think drinking water that can kill you! 

NETWORK Lobby Advocates for Catholic Social Justice

Let’s break it down: 

No Endangerment Finding = No Climate Protections

 Without it, the EPA cannot limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars, trucks, power plants, or oil and gas operations. That means more tailpipe pollution, more smog, and more soot in the air our children breathe. It means more asthma attacks, more emergency room visits, and more premature deaths, especially in low-income communities and communities of color already burdened by industrial pollution. 

No Climate Rules = Dirtier Water and Weaker Storm Protections

 Warmer temperatures fueled by unchecked carbon pollution mean rising sea levels, stronger hurricanes, and intensified rainfall. This leads to flooded sewage systems, contaminated drinking water, and overwhelmed infrastructure. Repealing the Endangerment Finding weakens our ability to mitigate these impacts and leaves vulnerable communities to fend for themselves when a climate disaster strikes. 

EPA Authority = No Clean Energy Transition 

 Administrator Zeldin’s proposal not only targets car emissions, it sets the stage for dismantling rules that encourage clean energy and efficiency. That means more fossil fuels, fewer wind and solar projects, and fewer clean energy jobs in communities that desperately need them. It also means people in the U.S. will spend more to fill up their cars. This radical policy change comes just as we’re finally seeing the benefits of electric vehicles and clean technology take root. 

No Accountability = No Future

This rollback erases 15 years of progress and legal precedent. It ties the hands of future presidents, public health officials, and EPA scientists. The big institutional shareholders win again. Furthermore, it tells the world loud and clear that the U.S. is once again backing out of its moral and global responsibilities to lead in this urgent space.  

And For What?

The EPA claims this action is justified by a fringe research report commissioned from five climate denialists who say carbon dioxide helps plants grow. They argue—absurdly—that U.S. transportation emissions don’t matter because they’re “too small” to affect global temperatures. Never mind that transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the country. Never mind that if our vehicle sector were a country, it would be the fourth-largest emitter on Earth. Never mind the 7 billion metric tons of emissions that were set to be avoided under the standards this would undo.  

This isn’t about science. It’s about ideology. Administrator Zeldin, once a coastal Republican concerned about sea-level rise, now says he wants to “drive a dagger through the heart of climate–change religion.” This is a far cry from the monumental progress the U.S. made in the mid-20th century by investing in efforts to clean waterways, beautify highways, and vastly eliminate environmental lead emissions. It was Richard Nixon, a Republican president, who created the EPA in 1970. 

Let us be clear!

Climate justice is not a religion, but a moral responsibility — and one we must not abandon.  

At NETWORK, we know that those of us most harmed by climate inaction are the same people our faith prioritizes: those of us in poverty, who are ill, elderly, displaced, or disabled people. We also recognize the damage future generations will inherit the consequences of our choices. 

This decision would mean more pollution in our lungs, more toxins in our water, more wildfires, more displacement, and more loss. We reject this false choice between environmental protection and economic freedom.  We reject this corrupt inversion of public service that prioritizes polluters over people.  We reject this cowardly attempt to pretend the climate crisis does not exist.  

The EPA has opened a public comment period on this proposal. And we plan to make our voices heard. In partnership with Franciscan Action Network, Catholic Climate Covenant, Maryknoll, the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, NETWORK is organizing a public comment letter telling the EPA that as people of faith, we reject the EPA’s rescission of the Endangerment Finding. Add your name here and tell the EPA to keep the Endangerment Finding and protect our air, water, and our climate.  We will not sit by while the government tries to dismantle the very laws that protect God’s creation — and all of us who call it home. The only thing more dangerous than denying the climate crisis is denying our responsibility to confront it! 

Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (to File Our Taxes)

Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (to File Our Taxes)

Trump’s Shutdown of Direct File Tax Option Shows Administration Always Picks Business Over People

Jarrett Smith
August 15, 2025

Don’t we all deserve the best of things? Why can’t the government deliver a top-quality app that solves a problem? 

The Biden administration tried to answer both of those questions with a service called Direct File.  

The pandemic got government leaders to think about ways for people to more easily access government support like the Child Tax Credit. Led by Treasury, the IRS, the U.S. Digital Service, and Code for America, a team built a free tax preparation service from the ground up: Direct File. 

A pile of tax-related documents sits atop each other in a chaotic mess.

The Direct File program, which the government rolled out in numerous states under the Biden administration, allowed people to file their taxes directly with the government online for free. President Trump shut it down in July.

Direct File opened the door for people to file their taxes directly with the IRS for free rather than having to rely on a third-party service, which is often costly. An extra $23 billion is spent by taxpayers with for-profit tax preparation companies. 

Direct File began in the 2024 filing season and was eventually rolled out to 25 states by 2025. It had the potential to become a one-stop place for people to qualify for federal benefits like SNAP, Medicaid, and others while also filing income taxes. It met its goal of eliminating costs and confusion for taxpayers. One survey said that 98 percent of Direct File users being “very satisfied” or “satisfied.” 

This promising development abruptly ended July 31, when the President Trump shut down the entire Direct File program. It’s yet another move by the Trump administration to favor the interests of business over anything that might help people to thrive.  

We can take some solace in the news that, before then-IRS Commissioner Billy Long said 2026 taxpayers will not have the free app as an option to file taxes, Direct File’s code was released. This left some hope that Direct File may one day be restored. A future administration could decide to do the right thing and give us all a little something we deserve. 

Immigrant Families: We Can All Afford to Live With Dignity

Immigrant Families: We Can All Afford to Live With Dignity

Cruel cuts to vital services come at a time of soaring costs for those who need it the most

 

Giovana Oaxaca
August 11, 2025

The recently passed budget reconciliation bill diverts resources from communities to mass deportation efforts and border militarization. In this third installment of a three-part series (Part 1, Part 2), Giovana Oaxaca, NETWORK Senior Government Relations Advocate for Immigration, explores how the bill cruelly cuts services to vital services, but also the road ahead that justice-seekers can pursue to defeat these measures.

In communities across the country, working families are already grappling with rising costs. Groceries, rent, childcare, and health care have all surged in price (and will continue to do so thanks to the recently passed budget bill), leaving many households struggling to make ends meet. Yet, Congress will deepen the hardship by stripping away vital support from those who need them most. 

Sisters of St. Joseph of Brentwood, NY hold a sign at a June event on Capitol Hill at which Catholic Sisters strongly opposed the budget reconciliation bill.

This bill proposes to render many qualifying and lawfully present immigrants ineligible for vital programs while simultaneously slashing these programs by billions for U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents. Except for green card holders, individuals residing in the U.S. according to a Compact of Free Association, and certain Cuban and Haitian entrants, the following programs will be severely restricted for non-citizens: 

  • Through passage of the budget reconciliation act, Congress ends Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for many of the most vulnerable including refugees, asylees, and several others. 
  • Congress also ends subsidized ACA Marketplace coverage for asylees, refugees, people with Temporary Protected Status, and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients beginning on January 1, 2027. Furthermore, all lawfully present immigrants with incomes under 100 percent of the FPL would be rendered ineligible for ACA marketplace coverage beginning on January 1, 2026
  • Despite promises to protect Medicare, the bill quietly strips access from many eligible immigrants. This means those who had coverage at the time of the bill will have their coverage end after January 4, 2027. This move leaves thousands of ageing individuals without the care they’ve relied on.
  • Food insecurity is also poised to worsen. The bill would end food assistance for eligible immigrants receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
The Road Ahead

Harsh policies needlessly instill fear in communities and drive people deeper into the shadows. Common-sense immigration policies should uphold dignity, promote fairness and lawfulness, and prioritize meaningful reforms like a path to permanent legal status, not unnecessarily punish those who are in good standing in their communities as this administration has relentlessly done. Catholic Social Justice calls us to uphold the dignity of every human being. The real human costs of this immoral bill are undeniable. 

Legislation must bear in mind human dignity and the common good, the principle that every person should have the opportunity to live with dignity, contribute to society, and reach their God-given potential. The bills’ swift passage and lack of guidance create conditions ripe for abuse, including worsening overcrowding in detention facilities, fast-tracked deportations that bypass due process, and the hasty awarding of contracts without proper oversight.  

As Congress debates even more federal funding for ICE through the annual appropriations process, NETWORK is closely monitoring H.R. 4016, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2026 and H.R.4213 – Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2026, which increase funds related to enforcement, detention, and border security. This alarming increase in interior enforcement in our communities is coming at the expense of taxpayers and family unity, and we must stand firm. 

Concerned people of faith can help support family unity and their communities by sharing know-your-rights materials and connecting with local community-based organizations, uphold dignity by supporting just policies like the restoration of sensitive locations policy guidance to ICE, and push for robust oversight and accountability from local and federal government officials and agencies.

Read Part 1 on immigration enforcement and detention.

Read Part 2 on how unfair government fees threaten family unity.

Immigrant Families: Unfair Fees Jeopardize Family Unity

Immigrant Families: Unfair Fees Jeopardize Family Unity

Congress is making it harder to get and maintain lawful status, raising the stakes for blended families trying to stay together

 

Giovana Oaxaca
August 8, 2025

The recently passed budget reconciliation bill diverts resources from communities to mass deportation efforts and border militarization. As Congress raises spending, it is also undermining the immigration system, deliberately raising barriers to lawful status. Most of these provisions take effect immediately. In this second installment of a three-part series, Giovana Oaxaca, NETWORK Senior Government Relations Advocate for Immigration explores how the bill threatens family unity with costly fees that, in conjunction with the Trump administration’s efforts to strip people of their status, create a legal minefield for many families.

Across the nation, blended families are navigating a huge immigration bureaucracy despite heightened enforcement targeting people following legal procedures at courthouses and check-ins. At the same time, through a series of fee hikes included in the bill, Congress is raising the cost of applying for and maintaining certain types of lawful status and work authorization, raising the stakes even more.  

Sr. Deirdre Griffin, SSJ listens to Yesenia Lacayo of Mission Action in San Francisco during the 2024 Nuns on the Bus & Friends tour.

Sr. Deirdre Griffin, SSJ listens to Yesenia Lacayo of Mission Action in San Francisco during the 2024 Nuns on the Bus & Friends tour. The organization supports individuals and families with housing, immigration, health and wellness, and work resources. Photo: Jacob Schatz, CCR Studios

The fees in question will have a disproportionate impact on at-risk adults and families filing for humanitarian protection. These exorbitant fees mean that low- and moderate–income immigrant families will face new hurdles to securing stability and safety. Coupled with the Trump administration’s efforts to negate birthright citizenship and strip lawful status of numerous humanitarian migrants, family unity is under widespread attack.

  • The Trump administration has aggressively moved to take individuals with lawful status and valid work authorization and attempted to render them deportable.  
  • This has been attempted, with Supreme Court often intervening to permit the administration to carry out, with 500,000 CHNV humanitarian parole beneficiaries, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders from Haiti (348,000), Venezuela (350,000), Afghanistan (11,700), Cameroon, Nepal, Honduras, and Nicaragua (60,000).  
  • The Trump administration has also ratcheted up criminal charges for civil immigration violations, measures that increase vulnerability to deportation for immigrants. 

The bill would impose a minimum $100 fee for asylum and $550 for work permit applications—a first in U.S. history—posing a barrier for many, including trafficking survivors and those fleeing persecution. Asylum seekers, parole beneficiaries, and individuals seeking Temporary Protected Status would pay an initial fee and $275 annually to renew work permits sufficiency. To make matters worse, many of these fees are minimums, meaning the Administration could charge more than what is listed in the bill. And the bill removes various waivers. 

The proposed fees would be especially burdensome for immigrants seeking benefits adjudicated through the immigration court system, adding significant barriers to relief. This includes for example, applications for Green Cards, waivers of inadmissibility, appeals of immigration judge decisions, and other related proceedings. In all, it paints a picture that is grossly unfair, in addition to the already unjust and gut-wrenching toll that enforcement measures place on immigrant families and communities. 

The immense bureaucracy that families and individuals are facing is itself concerning but turning our backs on families and individuals trying to follow legal processes is unjust and counterproductive.

Part 3 of this series will address the needs of families to live with dignity.

Read Part 1 on immigration enforcement and detention.

Immigrant Families: What’s at Stake and How We Respond

Immigrant Families: What’s at Stake and How We Respond

Congress has allocated hundreds of billions of dollars to ramp up raids and detain thousands of our neighbors and loved ones at a massive taxpayer and moral cost

 

Giovana Oaxaca
August 5, 2025

The recently passed budget reconciliation bill diverts resources from communities to mass deportation efforts and border militarization. As Congress raises spending, it is also reinforcing state and federal cooperation. Most of these funds will be spent before September 30, 2029. In this first of a three-part series, Giovana Oaxaca, NETWORK Senior Government Relations Advocate for Immigration, will address immigration in the bill. 

In cities across the country, ICE raids have become all too common, leaving families shattered and communities living in fear. But we don’t have to accept terror as the status quo. Immigrants, their families, neighbors, employers, and advocates are united in demanding respect for human dignity, protection of basic rights, and a government that serves the common good. NETWORK staff and advocates have been on the frontline of defending immigrant rights—turning the passage of recent legislation into a moral awakening.  

Giovana Oaxaca speaks at 2024 Nuns on the Bus & Friends launch.

Giovana Oaxaca, who now serves as NETWORK Senior Government Relations Advocate for Immigration, speaks at the 2024 Nuns on the Bus & Friends announcement. Photo: Larry French/AP Content Services for NETWORK Nuns on the Bus and Friends

To understand the most aggressive immigration crackdown in recent U.S. history, let’s unpack how the budget reconciliation will drive mass deportations that tear families apart; impose higher immigration fees on already burdened families; and cut health and food assistance, denying children and families the necessary resources they need to thrive.

Diverting Community Resources to Fund Mass Deportation Efforts

The rapid growth of the detention system is poised to continue. Congress provided $45 billion to expand adult and family immigration detention, enough to maintain 100,000 detention beds per day. The bill includes a $29.9 billion lump sum that can be used to hire 10,000 new ICE agents, upgrade facilities, detain families together, and expand the use of 287(g) agreements, among other uses. Another $5 billion for the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) could allow for continued repurposing of prisons for immigration detention. 

  • In the text of the bill, Congress failed to create guardrails to prevent the prolonged detention of children and their families, in potential contravention of the Flores Settlement Agreement. This puts the protection of children at even greater risk. 
  • On May 10, the Trump administration moved to terminate Flores, the landmark court order establishing the standards of treatment, care, and release of children in federal immigration custody. 

Another significant amount of funding ($3.32 billion) is allocated to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for hiring immigration judges, combatting drug trafficking, investigating and prosecuting immigration matters, supporting state and localities’ immigration enforcement efforts through community policing grants, and compensating states and localities for jailing immigrants. Congress effectively guarantees that the deportation infrastructure will be primed to deport one million people annually, ramping up kidnappings, accelerating the removal process, and raising barriers to relief. 

Entrenching State-Federal Cooperation

New programs created by Congress cement further state and local law enforcement collaboration on immigration enforcement, eroding trust in local law enforcement. 

The bill provides $3.5 billion for establishing a new grant program under the DOJ called the Bridging Immigration-related Deficits Experienced Nationwide (BIDEN) Reimbursement Fund, which states and localities can use for a range of purposes, including apprehending unlawfully present non-citizens who have committed crimes and for the criminal detention of non-citizens. State and local cooperation is emphasized with a further $2.055 billion lump sum created to fund hiring new Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents, deportations, enhanced screenings of immigrants, and the deportation of unaccompanied children from contiguous countries. It will also reimburse states and localities for various immigration and security efforts, providing for the deportation of unaccompanied children, expedited removal of non-citizens who have committed crimes, and screening unaccompanied children for possible gang affiliations. 

This spending allows deeper entanglement between state and local law enforcement and federal authorities. An additional $13.5 billion is allocated to states for border-related immigration enforcement, $10 billion for a “State Border Security Reinforcement Fund,” and $450 million for Operation Stonegarten, which bolsters state and local law enforcement at the border. This further embeds state and local law enforcement into both administrative and criminal enforcement of immigration laws, blurring lines. 

This may contribute to the erosion of trust between local police and immigrant communities due to fear. In one survey, 35 percent of Latino parents said they planned to avoid talking to police or reporting crimes because of fear.

Ramping Up Deadly Border Enforcement

Under this legislation, $46.5 billion is provided for new and replacement border walls and barriers. Congress also makes $4.1 billion available to hire new Border Patrol agents, $2 billion to award bonuses, and $5 billion to make facility and checkpoint upgrades. Aside from the already provided amounts, $10 billion is provided to DHS for unspecified homeland security measures. Our tradition teaches that truth must precede reconciliation, and that repair is a spiritual discipline. As Pope Francis reminds us, “Every human being is precious.” That sacredness demands a public reckoning with the truth and a commitment to systemic transformation, so that all of us can thrive.

Part 2 of this series explores fairness for immigrant families.

 

Why We Need An Economy for All

Why We Need An Economy for All

Despite Major Setbacks Under the Trump Administration,
the Vision of a Better Tomorrow is Clear as Ever

Jane Sutter
Second Quarter 2025

Just five days before the inauguration of President Trump, NETWORK unveiled its An Economy for All policy agenda in a webinar that attracted more than 2,100 registrants. The agenda demands that elected leaders deliver what our communities need to thrive:

  • Jobs with paid leave and wages that cover our bills, retirement, and more
  • Affordable housing, food, and health care
  • Safe and welcoming neighborhoods
  • Clean air and water
  • A just tax code that ensures the wealthy pay their fair share
  • A just and humane immigration system
  • A politics responsive to the people, not the money
Joan F. Neal, NETWORK Interim Executive Director, speaks at an Ash Wednesday prayer service calling for a compassionate federal budget, March 5 on Capitol Hill. Photo: Catherine Gillette

Joan F. Neal, NETWORK Interim Executive Director, speaks at an Ash Wednesday prayer service calling for a compassionate federal budget, March 5 on Capitol Hill.
Photo: Catherine Gillette

In introducing the agenda, NETWORK Interim Executive Director Joan F. Neal noted, “We all recognize that these are challenging times for our country. Our democracy, our vision of a free, diverse, inclusive, pluralistic country is on the line, starting now.”

The challenging times became even more apparent as Trump enacted his “shock and awe” campaign and the House of Representatives narrowly passed its budget plan on Feb. 25 that extends previous tax cuts to billionaires and threatens to undo important safety net programs.

As the drama unfolded in Washington, NETWORK friends and collaborators witnessed the implications for their work on the ground.

Politics responsive to the people

When Rev. Dr. Gregory Edwards, Executive Director of POWER Interfaith, talks about activism,

Rev. Dr. Gregory Edwards, Executive Director of POWER Interfaith, participates in an Oct. 1 roundtable discussion in Allentown, Pa. During the 2024 Nuns on the Bus & Friends tour.

Rev. Dr. Gregory Edwards, Executive Director of POWER
Interfaith, participates in an Oct. 1 roundtable discussion in Allentown, Pa. During the 2024 Nuns on the Bus & Friends tour. Photo: Jacob Schatz, CCR Studios

he quotes Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s exhortation of “the fierce urgency of now.”

A multi-regional, multi-faith, multi-class, multi-generational movement, building politically progressive organizations and working with more than 400 congregations in the Philadelphia area, the Lehigh Valley and Central Pennsylvania, POWER’s focus is on local and state issues (wages, equitable school funding, renewable energy, and more). However, Edwards calls proposals at the federal level “disastrous, [and] at the same time it’s also a distraction because people are panicking.”

What citizens need from the federal government, said Edwards, is a higher minimum wage and access to quality and affordable health care, housing, and schools.
“What we know to be true is that things only change when people, ordinary people, actually begin to organize and lift up their voices and not only vote but are able to, by the thousands, move their legislators…to a position that is in their own best interests, regardless of who’s in the White House.”

A just tax code

Tax policy expert Sarah Christopherson traveled with Nuns on the Bus & Friends “Vote Our Future” tour this past fall. She delivered a strong message: “Never let anyone tell you that we can’t afford to take care of our people, that we can’t afford to feed the hungry, that we can’t afford to have a good education for our children, that we can’t afford to get homes and have living wages, because there is so much money untaxed right now, and some of it will never go taxed, among the billionaire class.”

Sarah Christopherson is a tax justice advocate, seen here on the 2024 Nuns on the Bus & Friends tour.

Sarah Christopherson is a tax justice advocate, seen here on the 2024 Nuns on the Bus & Friends tour. Photo: Jacob Schatz, CCR Studios

Christopherson points out that there are 815 people in the U.S. who are billionaires (according to an analysis of Forbes magazine data). “They are collectively worth six trillion dollars. You could tax them and still leave each one of them with a billion dollars and simultaneously have universal pre-K, have free school lunch, have full Medicaid coverage…It’s phenomenal what you could do, and they would still be billionaires.”

Christopherson describes how Republicans in Congress seek to renew tax for the ultra-rich and pay for them with cuts to Medicaid, SNAP, education, and health care subsidies and the threat of not curtailing the excess hoarding of wealth.

Protect people seeking asylum

At the Kino Border Initiative’s (KBI) Migrant Outreach Center in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, staff and asylum seekers quickly saw the effects of the Trump administration’s restrictive immigration measures. About 270,000 people who had registered for appointments at a Port of Entry to the United States were stranded in Mexico, according to statistics compiled by the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights advocacy organization.

Sr. Maria Engracia Robles, ME, of Kino Border Institute signs the Bus during the 2024 Nuns on the Bus & Friends site visit to the U.S-Mexico Border. Photo: Jacob Schatz, CCR Studios

Sr. Maria Engracia Robles, ME, of Kino Border Institute signs the Bus during the 2024 Nuns on the Bus & Friends site visit to the U.S-Mexico Border. Photo: Jacob Schatz, CCR Studios

KBI offers meals, shelter, clothing, legal and psychological assistance, and more. KBI Feedback Coordinator Sr. Maria Engracia Robles, ME, said through an interpreter, “All those Americans who have a good heart should understand the migrants in the U.S. are not criminals.” They are working in jobs such as agriculture, jobs that American citizens don’t want to do. “They are people of faith, they are working people.”

The reasons for migration have changed in recent years, Sr. Engracia said. Formerly, most migrants were seeking employment in the U.S. In recent years, migrants are families fleeing from violence or persecution. Despite recent events, the center’s clients remain hopeful, Sr. Engracia said. “They are hopefully waiting, God improves their lives,” and waiting patiently. “They are very sad but very strong at the same time.”

Jobs with fair wages

With the new Administration and Congress, Ani Halasz is greatly concerned that workers will struggle even more to make ends meet. Halasz is executive director at Long Island Jobs with Justice (LIJWJ), which works with labor unions, faithbased and other organizations, and activists to create living wage jobs, support worker organizing, and demand corporate accountability. The group’s mission aligns with NETWORK’s 2025 agenda – building an economy that works for all.

“We’ve known for a really long time that wealth inequality was destabilizing for democracies, but it didn’t feel urgent. … Now we’re to the point that you can’t deny it anymore.”

A top concern for Halasz is the status of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). In January, Trump fired the only female board member, leaving the board without a quorum. In February, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced the shuttering of regional NLRB offices. The move will “make it almost impossible for us to protect the rights of workers in the future,” Halasz said. “It will be increasingly hard for workers to organize labor unions, because there won’t be an agency overseeing that, there won’t be a federal act protecting workers’ rights to organize.”

Other threats include a chilling effect on workers coming forward about wage theft and other exploitation, as well as Medicaid requirements that impose work requirements and exclude many immigrants.

“What we’re seeing happening right now in this country is the rolling back of almost every protection in this country that we fought for.”

Clean air and water

When Curtis Da’Von meets with citizens, his goal is to help them understand how things are connected between our environment and our everyday experiences. As part of his work as Southwest Pennsylvania Organizing Director for Clean Water Action, a national organization, he educates the community—including who have lost a loved one to violence—about the dangers of environmental lead on children and its connection to behavioral and developmental problems.

Curtis Da’Von of Clean Water Action gets a selfie with the Bus at the Oct. 5, 2024 Nuns on the Bus & Friends rally in Pittsburgh. Photo: Jacob Schatz, CCR Studios

Curtis Da’Von of Clean Water Action gets a selfie with the Bus at the Oct. 5, 2024 Nuns on the Bus & Friends rally in Pittsburgh. Photo: Jacob Schatz, CCR Studios

“So often in communities of color, there’s issues of high violence and crime. So you can start to connect the dots,” he says. “You can literally look at a map and areas that are high in lead are high in crime.”

The Pittsburgh area, where Da’Von works, already lacks enough government funding to cover the needs to remove lead from homes. Funding cuts at the Environmental Protection Agency further jeopardize their work.

Staying hopeful

Pope Francis’s exhortation that people be “Pilgrims of Hope” in this jubilee year has become a rallying cry for NETWORK and its volunteers. As Neal expressed to webinar attendees, “Let us be inspired to move to action, and as we do, let us call upon the God we know we can depend upon to carry us through today, tomorrow, and however long it takes.”

For More Information:
Clean Water Action
Kino Border Initiative
Long Island Jobs with Justice 
POWER Interfaith
Sarah Christopherson 

Jane Sutter is a freelance journalist based in Rochester, N.Y., and is part of NETWORK’s New York Advocates team.

This story was published in the Quarter 2 2025 issue of Connection.