Buffalo Immigrant Leadership Team

Buffalo Immigrant Leadership Team (BILT) has received a total of $290,000 from the Catholic Campaign for Human development over five grants starting in the 2017-2018 grants cycle. Most recently, BILT received $25,000 in 2025 from the CCHD.

BILT originated as a spin-off of VOICE-Buffalo, another frequent CCHD grant recipient we’ve reported in the past for gross grantee violations. Unfortunately, BILT also stands in violation of CCHD’s prohibition against membership in immoral coalitions as it is a federation member of Faith in Action which has taken a public stand in favor of abortion, participated in partisan political activity, and fomented violent activity on the Left.

Faith in Action is a coalition of over 40 members, many of whom received funding from the CCHD. Faith in Action itself received $500,000 in 2016 from the CCHD, when it was called the PICO Network.  However, Faith in Action publicly supports abortion, its leaders openly slammed the overturn of Roe v. Wade, and FIA participated in electioneering activities in support of President Joe Biden and other Democratic candidates while openly praising the burning of buildings in the 2020 riots. The organization also supports LGBTQ+ ideologies. All of the pertinent information regarding Faith in Action on the whole is contained in the fully detailed report on FIA (see here), but the most important point is this:

On the day of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Dobbs v. Jackson case which overturned Roe v. Wade, Faith in Action took a formal position condemning the ruling, while vowing to “stand with women” calling it “oppression” to deny a woman the right to murder her child through abortion.

In an official press release, published on Faith in Action’s website, Faith in Action said:

“Clergy and organizers with Faith in Action, the largest grassroots, faith-based organizing network in the United States, are speaking out against today’s Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, following a leak of the Supreme Court opinion.”

FIA’s executive director Rev. Alvin Herring called the decision, “a huge blow to women in this season of despair,” and declared that ”[w]e must speak out against dangerous policies that chip away at having agency over their own bodies.”

Rev. Dr. Cassandra Gould, FIA’s Senior Strategist at FIA’s Washington, DC office, claimed that the “SCOTUS decision to overturn ROE” was “legalized, judicially enforced oppression” that “shows contempt for the Creator.”

Rev. Kamilah Hall Sharp, member of FIA’s Organizing Clergy Board, said that the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was “deadly,” and that she was “enraged at the injustice, the lack of care for women and that most people who voted to take this right away will never have to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term in their bodies.”  She then had the audacity to claim that “As a follower of Jesus,” her rage about the overturning of Roe “aligns with [H]is.”

This is the entire statement as it appeared on the Faith in Action website:

According to internal communications reviewed by the Lepanto Institute, following FIA’s public abortion tantrum, CCHD was forced to temporarily suspend grants to its affiliates. FIA subsequently scrubbed its site and social media of its pro abortion rhetoric, going so far as claiming that “We aren’t taking a position on abortion now and never have” [emphasis added] in a follow up press release dated July 1, 2022.

Considering the national FIA office had just one week prior issued a very clearly pro abortion press release and series of social media posts complete with quotes from its leadership, only a fool or co-conspirator could possibly believe them. Given that CCHD is now continuing to fund FIA affiliates, it is fitting to ask whether they are the fools or co-conspirators.