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It was not clear why CatholicVote was targeting the efforts of Pimentel and others in the Rio Grande Valley. A spokesperson for the group did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but CatholicVote President Brian Burch spoke to Fox News on Wednesday.
“American Catholics deserve to know the full extent of the U.S. government’s role in funding and coordinating with Catholic Church affiliated agencies at the border, and what role these agencies played in the record surge of illegal immigrants over the past year,” Burch told the network.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton suggested to Fox the effort is spurred in part by reports Pimentel or Catholic Charities, which receives federal funds, helped a small number of immigrants accrue bus or airline tickets in the U.S.
The second suit filed by CatholicVote calls for the government to respond to a FOIA request seeking communications between the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Solicitor General and a slate of Catholic groups and leaders regarding controversial abortion laws in Texas and Mississippi. Both laws are the subject of high-profile lawsuits: The Justice Department is suing Texas over its law, and the Mississippi statute is the subject of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a case before the Supreme Court that may result in the reversal of long-standing abortion rights later this year.
CatholicVote’s lawsuit asks for any communications regarding the laws between the government and the USCCB, as well as a number of relatively liberal-leaning bishops such as retired Bishop W. Francis Malooly of Wilmington, Delaware; Cardinal Wilton Gregory, archbishop of Washington, D.C.; Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia; Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky; and Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego.
In addition, CatholicVote asks for any communications between the government and Faith in Action, a multifaith group that often advocates for liberal-leaning causes; Catholics for Choice, a group that supports abortion rights; Tom Perriello, a onetime Democratic congressman and executive director for U.S. programs at Open Society Foundations; Sister Carol Keehan, former head of the Catholic Health Association; and John Carr, co-director of the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University.
Debate over the abortion laws has triggered passionate religious outcry, with faith leaders expressing a wide spectrum of views. Religious opponents and backers of the Mississippi law rallied outside the Supreme Court while justices heard oral arguments in the case in December, and while faith voices have celebrated the Texas law, one of the legal challenges against it includes clergy as plaintiffs, who argue its restrictions amount to an affront of their religious freedom.
This article originally appeared here.
