To the Journal editor:

Network is a Catholic organization that describes itself as “Advocates for Justice, Inspired by Catholic Sisters.” It’s been around a long time. Think nuns on the bus. This group lobbies for the most vulnerable. Think Beatitudes and Matthew 25. Each year they have legislative priorities. Here we go for 2025:

Project Medicaid. No cuts or “restructuring.”

Medicaid is the funding for nursing homes for our elderly. It’s also medical insurance for those earning very little like a dishwasher in a restaurant or those earning nothing like a caregiver for a family member or someone with very low skills like a merson with a mental disability.

The cuts and restructuring comes as waste and fraud are identified. This article on newsmax.com/Catholic Groups Use Congress to Protect Medicaid has a good explanation. What stood out to me in the article is that U.S. Rep. Diana Harshbarger, R-Tenn, told Newsmax that 60% of the people on Medicaid are not eligible. This is immoral. She goes on to say that we can get $100 billion in cuts.

Protect the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

SNAP participants receive food. It’s our tool as a nation for preventing hunger for families and children. 42 million people in the United States rely on SNAP to eat. No child or family should go hungry, especially in the richest nation in the world.

Be on the alert for reforms that deny people food so the money can be cut and used for other purposes. Sadly, it looks like these other purposes are tax cuts that go to the wealthy.

Invest in our communities, not in detention and deporation.

In a letter to U.S. bishops, Pope Francis wrote: “The act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution, or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness.”

Do not militarize immigration enforcement. ICE raids terrorize communities. Military deportation flights like we recently saw to an El Salvadorian prison are wrong. These men we saw bent down in chains are cut off from communication with their loved ones and their lawyers.

Detention and deportation cost billions of dollars which sadly will come from the above cuts in Medicaid and SNAP. This is immoral.

Follow Network at networklobby.org. Thank you.