Nathan Phillips rally attempted to disrupt Mass at DC’s National Shrine

Denver, Colo., Apr 19, 2020 / 03:01 pm (CNA).- After receiving more than 1.6 million applications, a key part of the US government’s economic response to the coronavirus pandemic, known as the Paycheck Protection Program, ran out of money Thursday and will no longer be accepting new applications.

In the two weeks the Paycheck Protection Program was active, the application process for the loans excluded small business owners with criminal records from applying— potentially hurting both business owners with criminal records and their employees, advocates and those with personal experience told CNA.

What is the PPP?

Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act March 27 to help relieve the economy during the coronavirus pandemic.

Among various measures, including expansions to unemployment benefits, the CARES Act authorizes some $350 billion in loans to small businesses, intended to allow these businesses to continue to pay their employees. The loans were given on a first come, first serve basis.

The loans were capped at $10 million, were open to businesses with fewer than 500 employees per location, and were intended to cover two months of payroll costs.

The federal government promised to forgive the loans if a business used at least 75 percent of the funds to maintain its payroll at “pre-pandemic levels” for eight weeks after the loan is disbursed, the New York Times reports.

The remaining money could be used only to pay for certain expenses, such as a mortgage, rent, and utilities, according to the Times.

Those with criminal records left behind

The most recent guidelines from the Small Business Administration regarding the PPP stated that business owners will be denied a loan if they are facing criminal charges, or have had a felony conviction in the past five years.

This policy is, according to a group of nonprofit social justice organizations who wrote an April 10 letter to Congress, more restrictive than the SBA’s existing regulations regarding criminal record restrictions for small business loans.

Applicants are asked about criminal history for regular SBA loans. A typical small business loan application from the SBA allows applicants to provide details about their criminal history beyond a simple “yes” or “no”— unlike the emergency loan application, which explicitly states that the loan will not be approved if the applicant answers “yes” to either of the two questions pertaining to criminal records.

“With one in three Americans having some sort of record, and people with records experiencing an unemployment rate five times higher than the average rate, these restrictions will have a significant and detrimental impact on individuals, families, and communities across the United States,” the group of nonprofits said in their letter.

The application form for the PPP itself had more restrictions, such as mandating that no one owning 20% or more of the business be subject to any “means by which formal criminal charges are brought in any jurisdiction.”

A similar loan from the SBA called the Economic Injury Disaster Loan also asked for the applicant’s criminal history, and seems to exclude those who have “ever” been convicted, pleaded guilty, pleaded no contest, been placed on pretrial diversion, parole, or probation for “any criminal offense.”

The small business hustle

James Blum, a Catholic who runs a community in Aurora, Colo., that assists men coming out of prison, told CNA that people with criminal records already face major challenges finding employment and getting loans.

Blum— who himself spent time in prison and has a felony on his record— considered applying for the PPP himself, but knew his felony would exclude him.

Many guys with criminal records hope, Blum said, that it would be easier to start their own company rather than try to get hired. The truth is, he said, most businesses, even if you’re not a felon, don’t succeed. There’s a lot of money that must be invested, and there’s an attitude of hustle that you have to have.

Reporting from the non-profit Marshall Project bears out Blum’s experience, suggesting that because people with felonies, in particular, often cannot get jobs, many start their own businesses.

Blum said he knows a man with a criminal record who started his own janitorial business, and found some success doing that until the company eventually went under.

Another man he knew started a company doing custom tile, and took on several employees, but “he’s working like a dog” to make ends meet.

“Many guys think, ‘Oh I’ll just work for myself.’ And that sounds good, but it’s very difficult to be successful as a small business owner in this country,” he said.

“The call never comes”

Blum’s organization, My Father’s House, helps men gain the skills they need to be successful post-prison. He said at least three of the men who frequent the house are currently out of work, one of whom was just released from prison and did not have a chance to look for a job before the pandemic began.

The other two, he said, have been laid off and are filing for unemployment.

“When they first get out of prison, men, especially those convicted of sexual offenses, aren’t even allowed to access the internet, and they have to have permission, and that can take months to build the trust with the parole officer and the treatment providers and let them access the internet, and even have an email address,” Blum said.

“To try to apply for a job in this world without an email address is just ridiculous. Every time you go on a website, the first thing they ask you is what’s your email address. And so even if you can get permission to go to a monitored computer site, like at the parole office, and you go to a website, the very first thing they’re going to ask you is for your email address.”

At some point the parole officer will allow them to create an email address, but they can only access that email at the parole office, Blum said. The logistics are difficult, partly because they have to create a resume on a computer they’re not familiar with, and they can’t access their email every day.

When an employer finally gives someone with a criminal record a job interview, you can explain a felony as best you can, but it may not always make a difference, Blum said. The interview could be going well, and the interviewer could be impressed with the applicant’s knowledge and experience, but it may end up being moot once they learn of the applicant’s record.

“The answer is just: ‘Well, we’ll give you a call.’ And the call never comes,” Blum said.

Though a recruiter may interview a candidate with a criminal record, most Human Resources departments will step in after that. Success in the interview is not a predictor of success in getting the job, Blum said.

“There’s a whole series of decision makers that you never even get to meet,” he said.

“At some point you end up with a whole class of people that have served their sentence, they’ve supposedly paid their debt to society, and yet they cannot enter into the economy, and into society at a regular level.”

Blum noted that he himself is very blessed to be able to work full-time hours from home during the pandemic, and not be laid off, but “I’m in the minority, for sure, among felons.”

“How does that make any sense?”

Brian, a Catholic living in Denver who is working to start a software consulting business, told CNA that he tried to apply for the emergency loan, but a misdemeanor on his record automatically excluded him.

Brian is on a diversion program and has a misdemeanor harassment charge on his record. While he does not have a felony on his record, he has found it difficult to find employment since his misdemeanor charge, despite being an experienced computer programmer.

“Now I’m going to have to suffer financially for it, as if I haven’t suffered enough,” he told CNA.

While it may be politically expedient to include a clause excluding those with criminal records from the emergency loan program, Blum said it ends up hurting not only the bosses, but the workers as well.

“By stopping the business owner— who was convicted of a felony five, six, seven years ago and served his time and paid his debt to society— by stopping that man from getting the loan, you’re punishing another guy who’s never committed a crime in his life, and that guy’s family,” Blum said.

“[The worker] is going to lose his job because the business owner can’t afford to pay the payroll. How does that make any sense?”

If the purpose of the emergency loan program is to relieve the American economy, he said, he doesn’t see why a business owner’s criminal history is important.

“They think they’re punishing the business owner, but really they’re punishing these other people,” he said.

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Springfield, Ill., Mar 17, 2021 / 07:01 pm (CNA).- Illinois’ requirement to notify parents of a minor who seeks an abortion is a law that helps save lives and ensures parents are involved in their children’s major decisions, the Catholic bi… […]

This image grab made from an AFPTV video taken in Maiyanga village, in Bokkos local government, on December 27, 2023 shows families burying in a mass grave their relatives killed in deadly attacks conducted by armed groups in Nigeria’s central Plateau State. / Credit: Photo by KIM MASARA/AFPTV/AFP via Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 3, 2024 / 18:05 pm (CNA).

A new report has found that ethnic and religious violence in Nigeria has claimed the lives of nearly 56,000 people in the West African country over four years — and the victims were disproportionately Christian.

The report, published by The Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa, found more than 11,000 incidents of extreme violence from October 2019 through September of 2023. The violence left 55,910 people dead in 9,970 deadly attacks — as well as 21,621 people abducted in 2,705 attacks.

The total number includes civilian deaths, terror group deaths, and Nigerian Armed Forces deaths. Of the total deaths, 30,880 were civilians. 

Of the civilians, at least 16,769 Christians were killed, 6,235 Muslims were killed and 154 adherents of traditional African religions were killed. The religions of 7,722 victims are unknown.

The proportional loss for Christians, however, was much higher in the states where the attacks occurred. In terms of state populations, the report found that Christians were 6.5 times more likely to be killed in the violence. Similarly, when accounting for state populations, Christians were 5.1 times more likely to be victims of abduction.

“Millions of people are left undefended,” Frans Vierhout, a senior analyst at The Observatory of Religious Freedom in Africa, said in a statement.

“For years, we’ve heard of calls for help being ignored, as terrorists attack vulnerable communities,” he added. “Now the data tells its own story.”

According to the report, 81% of civilian killings were land-based community attacks. About 42% of those killings were carried out by armed Fulani herdsmen, which the researchers said invaded small Christian farming settlements to kill, rape, abduct and burn homes.

Fulani herdsmen, who are Sunni Muslim, killed at least 9,153 Christian civilians and at least 1,473 Muslim civilians in community attacks, according to the data. The religion of at least 1,267 victims of Fulani herdsmen attacks is unknown.

About 41% of the land-based community attacks came from a variety of groups, which the report categorizes as “other terrorist groups.” However, the report states that the “other” category likely “consists of different groups of ‘Fulani bandits’ who are as much part of the Fulani Ethnic Militia… as the Armed Fulani Herdsmen.”

The “other” terrorist groups are responsible for 10,274 killings in land-based community attacks, which include at least 3,804 Christians and 2,919 Muslims. The religion of about 3,503 victims is unknown.

At least 78 people killed by Fulani herdsmen and “other terrorist group” attacks adhered to traditional African religions. 

“Fulani Ethnic Militia are targeting Christian populations, while Muslims also suffer severely at their hands,” the Rev. Gideon Para-Mallam, another analyst for The Observatory of Religious Freedom in Africa, said in a statement.

“Kidnappers work to Islamist goals,” he added. “Where young women are kidnapped, tortured, and sexually violated, hope for normal married life, and family, may vanish.”

Islamist groups Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province carried out about 11% of the community attacks. Boko Haram killed at least 851 Christian civilians and 491 Muslims in such attacks, while the religions of 609 victims are unknown. The Islamic State killed at least 265 Christians and 127 Muslims, while the religion of 296 victims areunknown. 

Nina Shea, the director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, told CNA that “the numbers killed and abducted are staggering and the documentation is now irrefutable.”

“Fulani militants are waging a religious war, a jihad, against undefended Christian farming communities in large swaths of Nigeria,” she argued. “Equally undeniable and shocking is the fact that the Nigerian government has idly watched and tolerated these relentless attacks over many years. The goal of the militants to eradicate the Christian presence by murder, forcible conversion to Islam, and driving them out of their homeland appears to be shared by the government in Abuja [the capital of Nigeria] or else it would take action.”

Shea criticized the United States Department of State (DOS) for its repeated refusal to designate Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern,” a watchlist of countries responsible for severe violations of religious freedom. 

Nigeria was first included on the list in 2020, the final year of former President Donald Trump’s administration. However, it was removed in 2021, during the first year of President Joe Biden’s administration. The DOS report blamed the Nigerian violence on “intercommunal clashes” and a competition for resources.

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