Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump’s Plan to Freeze Federal Aid

The White House in Washington on Jan. 22, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

A federal judge temporarily blocked part of President Donald Trump’s directive to pause federal loans, grants, and other financial assistance on Jan. 28, hours after advocacy groups and several Democratic state attorneys general filed lawsuits against the administration.

During a Tuesday afternoon hearing in Washington federal court, U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan granted a “brief administrative stay,” ordering the Trump administration to refrain from blocking “open awards,” or funds that had been slated for disbursement, until at least Feb. 3.

AliKhan made her temporary ruling after hastily scheduling a video conference one hour before the freeze was to take effect at 5 p.m. ET.

The judge said the ruling will “maintain the status quo” and does not prevent the Trump administration from suspending funds for new programs, nor does it require resuming expired funding.

Another hearing is scheduled for Feb. 3 at 11 a.m. ET, where AliKhan will determine the next steps for the case.

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a memorandum on Monday, directing all federal agencies to pause grants, loans, and other financial assistance while the administration reviews the programs.

The lawsuit was filed by the National Council of Nonprofits, the American Public Health Association, Main Street Alliance, and SAGE, a New York LGBT nonprofit, with the advocacy groups arguing Trump’s plan would “have a devastating impact on hundreds of thousands of grant recipients.”

The group alleged that the Trump administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act, which established procedural rules for how executive branch agencies implement policy.

“The Memo fails to explain the source of OMB’s purported legal authority to gut every grant program in the federal government,” the lawsuit states.

The plaintiffs also argued that the freeze violated the First Amendment based on grant recipients’ rights to free speech and association, particularly SAGE, as it is an LGBT organization.

Before AliKhan granted a temporary restraining order on portions of the freeze, which the plaintiffs were seeking, a group of Democratic state attorneys general led by New York Attorney General Letitia James announced they were also suing the Trump administration on Tuesday.

“The president does not get to decide which laws to enforce and for whom,” James said on a press call with reporters.

During the second Trump administration’s first White House press briefing on Tuesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the freeze would not affect Social Security, Medicare, or food stamps, clarifying that it is not a blanket pause on federal assistance and various grant programs.

“If you are receiving individual assistance from the federal government, you will still continue to receive that,” Leavitt said. “The reason for this [pause is] to ensure that every penny that is going out the door is not conflicting with the executive orders and actions that this president has taken.”

She said that the pause was directed at diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and “Green New Deal social engineering policies.”

Later in the briefing, Leavitt said that she would provide a list of which programs were affected and how much funding had been frozen.

She also said that the pause would not affect Medicaid. When asked if any of the program’s recipients would see a cutoff, she said, “I’ll check back on that and get back to you.”

She later posted on X: “The White House is aware of the Medicaid website portal outage. We have confirmed no payments have been affected—they are still being processed and sent. We expect the portal will be back online shortly.”

This comment came after several state Medicaid programs reported on Tuesday that they had lost access to federal portals a day after the federal aid freeze announcement.

Reuters contributed to this report.