What Faith Aid and Relief Groups Lose in Trump’s Funding Freeze

Pastor Ben Squires did not have “baseless allegations of money laundering by Lutheran social service agencies” on his 2025 bingo card.

And yet, in the early hours of Sunday morning, Feb. 2, Squires found himself reading a flurry of social media posts about Mike Flynn’s unfounded accusations and billionaire Elon Musk’s promise that the Department of Government Efficiency would be “rapidly shutting down” supposedly “illegal payments” to a list of Lutheran groups including Global Refuge (formerly Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services), Pacific Lutheran University, and Lutheran Social Services organizations in Florida, Wisconsin, and South Dakota.