Rising to the Moment
CLINIC 2025 Annual Report
A Message From Our Executive Director
Dear friends and supporters,
As I look back on the year 2025, I am filled with a mix of emotions: great pride in our network’s creativity and endurance, but also grief and sorrow at the hardship our network’s clients faced.
One of our staff members stated that their aim of their work in 2025 was to “rise to the moment.” This, to me, sums up the work of 2025, which is why it was chosen to be the theme of this year’s annual report. In the face of grave threats to immigrant communities and to the legal system, CLINIC strove with our courageous partners to rise up and respond with creativity and strength.
2025 saw unprecedented changes to immigration law and policy, causing harm to immigrant communities sometimes beyond what we had imagined. We witnessed cruel enforcement tactics, breakdowns in due process, threats to constitutional rights, mass family separation, targeting of legal services organizations and social services and more — it was heartbreaking and overwhelming.
But we knew our task was to be a voice of clarity amid the chaos, providing solid legal information, training, and guidance. And even more so, our mission was to be messengers of hope — hope in a future where all people are safe and valued, based on our faith in God’s ultimate victory over violence, sin, and death.
In this report you will find information about CLINIC’s advocacy work, engagement with the field of legal services providers and advocates, our training and technical assistance, religious immigration services, and more. I invite you to receive this report as a dose of hope, hope that people are still working and fighting to give vulnerable immigrants the justice they deserve.
Stepping Up in Times of Change and Crisis
When Training and Technical Assistance director Jen Riddle puts herself back in the mindset of January 2025, she recalls a sense of foreboding, anxiety, and yet determination.
“We did so much to try and prepare our staff and network for what was coming with the change in administration,” recalls Riddle. “But it really was an impossible task. The level of change and system disruption has been far beyond what we expected.”
And yet, Riddle said, the team at CLINIC did their best to “rise to the moment.”
Keep On Climbing: Advocacy in 2025
CLINIC’s Advocacy team had a steep hill to climb in 2025. With the onslaught of policy changes, and many of their regular federal administrative advocacy channels shut down, they shifted more of their focus to community education and ensuring CLINIC’s voice remained part of the public record. They also doubled down on their state and local-level advocacy work.
In a typical year, the members of CLINIC’s advocacy team spend much of their time liaising with federal agencies to help CLINIC Affiliates access smoother and more timely immigration services. But with the second Trump administration, nearly all communication channels were closed.
Mounting a Communications Response
As 2025 began, the CLINIC communications team foresaw having a two-pronged mission for the year. The first part of the mission was clear: ensuring CLINIC was an anchoring, sustaining, and reassuring source of information for the network amid so much uncertainty. The second mission emerged quickly as well: to be part of the Catholic and moral voice responding to the rapid policy changes that the second Trump administration was making.
Maintaining a Network of Support and Solidarity
CLINIC developed a number of new and existing initiatives in 2025 to engage the field of nonprofit immigration legal services providers, working to expand capacity and strengthen our network. Learn more about these critical projects.
Responding in Real Time: CLINIC’s Emerging Issues Team
In the first part of 2025, amid an onslaught of rapid immigration policy changes, heightened enforcement operations, threats to due process of law, and funding losses across the network, the CLINIC team was scrambling to keep up and inform the network of how best to serve immigrant clients in this environment.
In response, in the summer of 2025 CLINIC decided to hire four new employees to form a new team: the Emerging Issues team. This team was to be wholly focused on responding to the multifold challenges thrown at the network by the new administration.
Advocating for Religious Workers
For CLINIC’s Religious Immigration Services (RIS) team, 2025 saw big ups and downs. It was a year of continued delays for clients, apprehension regarding rapid policy changes — but also unexpected progress on one key advocacy goal.
CLINIC’s RIS department is one of the nation’s leading providers of legal services for religious workers. These are men and women who are priests, brothers, sisters, seminarians and other clergy who come to the United States for formation, education, and work. Religious workers serve in critical roles as pastors, teachers, health workers, and more, providing essential spiritual and social services for U.S. communities.
2025 Finances
|
Revenues |
Excluding In-Kind Contributions |
Percentage |
Including In-Kind Contributions |
Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Awards |
$2,976,167 |
15.0% |
$2,976,167 |
14.7% |
|
Federal & State Awards |
$9,261,700 |
46.5% |
$9,261,700 |
45.8% |
|
USCCB Support |
$1,597,202 |
8.0% |
$1,597,202 |
7.9% |
|
Services |
$3,626,184 |
18.2% |
$3,626,184 |
17.9% |
|
Other Contributions |
$840,129 |
4.2% |
$840,129 |
4.2% |
|
In-Kind Contributions |
- |
0.0% |
$320,903 |
1.6% |
|
Other Income |
$1,607,391 |
8.1% |
$1,607,391 |
8.0% |
|
Total: |
$19,908,773 |
100% |
$20,229,676 |
100% |
|
Expenses |
||||
|
Program |
$17,888,877 |
86.3% |
$18,209,780 |
89.7% |
|
Management & General |
$2,248,715 |
10.9% |
$2,248,715 |
8.4% |
|
Fundraising |
$572,195 |
2.8% |
$572,195 |
1.9% |
|
Total: |
$20,709,787 |
100% |
$21,030,690 |
100% |
|
Program Expenses |
||||
|
Education & Network Growth |
$14,784,076 |
86.4% |
$14,784,076 |
86.4% |
|
Direct Representation |
$1,596,081 |
7.4% |
$1,913,881 |
7.4% |
|
Advocacy & Community Engagement |
$1,508,720 |
6.2% |
$1,511,823 |
6.2% |
|
Total: |
$17,888,877 |
100% |
$18,209,780 |
100% |
CLINIC Board of Directors 2025
Most Reverend Jaime Soto, BOARD CHAIR,
Bishop of Sacramento
Ms. Marguerite "Peg" Harmon,
VICE PRESIDENT,
Catholic Community Services of Southern Arizona (Retired)
Sister Sally Duffy, SC TREASURER,
Child Poverty Collaborative
Ms. Anna Marie Gallagher, SECRETARY, CLINIC
Most Reverend Roy E. Campbell,
Auxiliary Bishop of Washington, D.C.
Mr. William Canny,
Migration and Refugee Services, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
Most Reverend Nicholas DiMarzio,
Bishop Emeritus of Brooklyn
Most Reverend Eusebio Elizondo,
Auxiliary Bishop of Seattle
Most Reverend Mark J. Seitz,
Bishop of El Paso
Most Reverend Jacques Fabre-Jeune, CS, Bishop of Diocese of Charleston
Rev. Michael J.K. Fuller,
General Secretary, USCCB
Most Reverend Gerald Kicanas,
Bishop Emeritus of Tucson
Mr. Francis J. Mulcahy, J.D., M.T.S,
Georgia Catholic Conference
Mr. Vincent Pitta, Pitta LLP
Mr. Mark Palmer,
Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Catholic Relief Services (Retired)
Ms. Gwen Mills,
UNITE HERE (President)
Most Reverend George L. Thomas, Ph.D., Bishop of Las Vegas
Most Reverend Thomas G. Wenski,
Archbishop of Miami
Ms. Geraldine P. Carolan,
Pro-bono Attorney, Georgia
Thank You!
Thank you for your interest in our work in 2025. We will remain committed to our mission to promote the dignity and protect the rights of immigrants in the years ahead. We invite you to join us in this mission.
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