New order issued by a federal judge in Washington.
A federal judge in Washington on Feb. 25 extended her block of the Trump administration’s freeze of federal funding.
U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan
issued a preliminary injunction enjoining federal officials from freezing grants and loans until further notice.
Groups that sued the government over the freeze had on Feb. 3 won a temporary restraining order against the freeze because the judge
concluded that officials “cut the fuel supply to a vast, complicated, nationwide machine—seemingly without any consideration for the consequences of that decision.”
The National Council of Nonprofits and other groups said a more permanent block was needed to keep federal funding flowing to nonprofits and small businesses that rely on it.
“The same factors the Court previously considered now justify a preliminary injunction. Plaintiffs remain likely to succeed on all three of their claims,” they
said in a filing. “The freeze would cause irreparable harm to Plaintiffs and their members by punishing their exercise of core First Amendment rights, thwarting their ability to carry out their core missions, and in many cases inflicting existential economic injury. And the public interest strongly favors relief that would prevent Defendants from continuing to implement the Freeze Order, including under a different name.”
Government lawyers urged AliKhan not to enter a preliminary injunction.
They wrote in a filing that the freeze was outlined in a memorandum that has since been withdrawn. Even if it were not, the memo only covered “discrete categories of funding” and was being implemented under settled Executive Branch authority, the lawyers
said.
AliKhan said in her new ruling that the freeze, which triggered the shutdown of federal funding portals and a halt in payments, caused “nationwide chaos and paralysis.”
“The relief Plaintiffs now seek is a more durable version of the relief they sought then, when their members were on the brink of extinction. In sum, Plaintiffs have marshaled significant evidence indicating that the funding freeze would be economically catastrophic—and in some circumstances, fatal—to their members. That is sufficient to show an injury-in-fact,” she said.
During a recent hearing in the case, AliKhan
maintained the temporary restraining order as she contemplated issuing a preliminary injunction.
The judge is now telling officials to provide written notice of the preliminary injunction to all the agencies that received the memorandum, with instructions not to take any steps to prevent the disbursement of federal funds.
She also ordered the government to provide a status report on or before Feb. 28 advising her as to how they’ve complied with the ruling and instructed the parties in the case to file a joint status report on or before the same day proposing next steps in the case.
