NOTE: To download a PDF version of this report, please click here.
Centreville Immigration Forum
Centreville Immigration Forum is a grantee of the USCCB’s Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), having received a total of $250,000 since 2015. Their most recent grant for the year 2020-2021 was for $50,000, according to the list published by the CCHD. The stated “issue area” is for workers’ rights.
Centreville Immigration Forum was founded in 2011 with the stated purpose of implementing “sustainable programs that provide immigrants in need with the means to improve their lives and become more integrated into the community,” according to their website. Unfortunately, Centreville Immigration Forum directly supports and promotes LGBTQ+ ideologies, has a board member who promotes LGBTQ+ and pro-abortion agendas, and is a member of an organization which also promotes LGBTQ+ ideologies.
Support of LGBTQ+ Rights
The Centreville Immigration Forum has expressed its support of LGBTQ+ ideologies several times through social media.
On June 28, 2021, the Forum reposted an article published by the Washington Post titled, “There’s No LGBTQ Pride Without Immigrants.” At the top of the post, the Forum highlighted a quote from the article which said, “Often LGBTQ immigrants have borne the brunt of repression, and often still face more precarity than many other LGBTQ Americans. Until their rights are safe, neither are LGBTQ rights.”
On June 18, 2021, the Forum posted a fundraiser for Immigration Equality, a company whose webpage proudly proclaims them as “The nation’s leading LGBTQ and HIV-positive immigrant rights organization.” The post asked for donations for assisting LGBTQ asylum seekers. The stated goal? $15,000. The post stated, “It’s because of Immigration Equality and our amazing partners that #LGBTQ asylum seekers who flee violence and persecution will have their own chance to celebrate Pride Month proud and free this year and ever year to come.”
On June 4, 2021, the Forum shared another post from Immigration Equality which applauded “President Joe Biden’s termination of the Trump admin’s “Remain in Mexico” program” on the grounds that the program had ”forced many LGBTQ immigrants at the border to stay in Mexico until their asylum hearing in the U.S.”
Board member Jerry Foltz’s political agenda
Jerry Foltz, a board member of Centreville Immigration Forum and a Democrat politician, has many questionable political beliefs which should further demonstrate Centreville Immigration Forum’s incompatibility with Catholic moral and social teaching. In 2013, Foltz ran for the Democrats for Delegate of the 40th District in Virginia. In an article on Bristow Beat, a local news source, he was described as “championing…choice and marriage equality.”
He described his stance on abortion as similar to that of Bill Clinton, saying abortion “should be safe and rare,” but he also said that he supported “medical facilities that provide family planning” options to achieve that end. He was also openly supportive of same-sex unions and Virginia legislation that would allow them.
Vote Smart, a website which collects information on politicians’ stances on various issues, states Foltz’s issues positions on “Equal LGBT Rights” and “Women’s Rights” as of January 1, 2013. Although the source for this information, Foltz’s campaign website, can no longer be reached, the positions outlined on the Vote Smart site are similar to the ones Foltz stated in the Bristow Beat article.
Foltz states his commitment to preventing discrimination against anyone based on “sexual orientation or sexual identity,” not only in the workplace but with regards to “adoption procedures, accommodations, or access to marriage rights.” He also underlines his commitment to “work toward repealing Virginia’s constitutional amendment that banned marriage equality so that a loving relationship can become a legally committed one between any two people, regardless of genders.”
On the page concerning “Women’s Rights,” Foltz states his opinion that “over the past four years Virginia has taken us backwards on women’s rights,” and that “Richmond needs to stay out of a woman’s personal decisions” regarding her healthcare, especially contraception, which he believes should be “fully covered by adequate and accessible health insurance.”
That an individual with such views on LGBTQ+ ideologies, abortion, and contraception should be on the board of Centreville Immigration Forum is concerning enough, but the Forum’s participation as a member of the NDLON, an organization which promotes LGBTQ+ ideologies, is even more disturbing.
Membership in Pro-Abortion, Pro-LGBTQ+ Organization
The CCHD absolutely forbids organizations from membership in organizations acting against Catholic teaching. In an FAQ on the USCCB website, the CCHD directly answers the question about whether grantees may be members of coalitions that oppose Catholic teachings. In answer, the CCHD firmly stated, “CCHD will not fund groups that are knowingly members of coalitions that have as part of their organizational purpose or coalition agenda, positions or actions that contradict fundamental Catholic moral and social teaching.”
Given this, there is no way CCHD should have provided a grant to the Centreville Immigration Forum due to its membership in the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON). This network is an alliance of organizations dedicated to helping day laborers, and Centreville Immigration Forum is clearly identified as a member on the NDLON website.
In order for an organization to be a member of NDLON, the organization is required to pay dues. Organizations with an operating budget of less than $100,000 pay $150 in annual dues, whereas organizations with an operating budget of more than $100,000 are required to pay $300 in annual dues. According to Centreville Immigration Forum’s latest tax form 990, their annual expenses are well over $100,000, meaning they pay $300 in annual dues.
Ever since the June 24 Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, NDLON has been on a tear, vowing to fight for abortion as a “right,” and denouncing any restriction on the legalization of or access to abortion. On the same day Roe was overturned, NDLON posted a picture of a tattooed middle finger saying “F*** SCOTUS, FUND ABORTION.”
On July 15, 2022, NDLON called for people to register for “Operation Save Abortion.”
On June 26, 2022, NDLON fully advocated for organizing and mobilizing for “abortion rights.”
On June 27, posting a picture of the “Green Scarf” pro-abortion movement in Argentina with the caption “In front of the US Embassy in repudiation of the ruling against abortion,” NDLON formally declared: “The Reproductive Justice movement is international! We must act in solidarity across borders. Only through collective action and solidarity, can we win.”
In addition to bring radically pro-abortion, NDLON has a clear and public position promoting homosexual and transgender ideologies..
On its “Alliance Building” page, NDLON lists numerous areas of partnership, including LGBTQ. The intended result of such partnerships is “deepening our understanding of internal structures of oppression based on sexual orientation and gender identification.”
In a press release from October 11, 2011, NDLON expressed its concern over LGTBQ immigrants who might be affected by the Se Communities deportation program. The release quoted Monica Enriquez-Enriquez of Streetwise and Safe, an LGBTQ activist organization, “On this National Coming Out Day, we recognize that LGBT immigrants need more than acceptance from family, schools, and neighbors to be “out”: they need to be free from profiling, detention, and deportation.” The release celebrated “a historic confluence of movements for LGBTQ rights and migrant rights.”
Another press release published October 1, 2014, advocated use of executive action to protect LGBTQ immigrants. The article criticized then-President Obama for not doing so, and quoted a spokesperson from NDLON as saying “We welcome Congressional support for the inclusion of protections for undocumented LGBTQ immigrants in executive immigration action and more voices pressing the President to act.”
Conclusion
Even barring Centreville Immigration Forum’s explicit official support of LGBTQ+ ideologies and the fact that one of their board members is on public record as being in opposition to Catholic teaching on LGBTQ issues, abortion, and contraception, their membership in NDLON, an organization which aggressively promotes and advocates for abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, ought to exclude them from CCHD funding.
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