FILE PHOTO: Loren AliKhan, Deputy Solicitor General for the District of Columbia, speaks during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Universal Injunction Challenges in Washington on Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2020.
Caroline Brehman | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
Some forms of federal aid spending still appear to be frozen, a federal judge in Washington said Monday, despite a court order blocking the Trump administration’s funding pause and the Office of Management and Budget’s move last week to rescind its own memo announcing the policy.
President Donald Trump ordered a freeze on domestic and foreign federal aid last week in an effort to halt funding for causes that don’t fit with his agenda. But facing court challenges, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget walked it back a day later.
Still, cases challenging the initial order are working their way through the court system.
U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan said during a hearing Monday that she is inclined to grant a request from a coalition of nonprofit groups for a temporary restraining order requiring the government to release federal funds that have been frozen since last week.
AliKhan also said that she was leaning against granting a motion from the Justice Department to dismiss the lawsuit brought by the nonprofits as moot, due to the rescission of the OMB memo.
“We have individuals who are still having issues accessing funding platforms,” AliKhan said. “That indicates to me the memo is still doing some work,” she added.
Lawyers for the nonprofits submitted a collection of declarations from various small organizations testifying to their inability to access funds. As of Friday, three days after AliKhan initially blocked the funding freeze, rural health centers, scientific research labs, childcare facilities and other organizations still had not received their expected funds, according to the declarations.
The board president of a West Virginia nonprofit that helps people with disabilities remain in their homes said in a declaration filed Sunday that they have been waiting for federal funds to be deposited into the organization’s account since Jan. 29 but had not yet received the funds as of Sunday night.
“I am desperate to bring attention to our situation,” the board president wrote in the declaration. “I cannot believe anyone would NOT want to help an 86-year-old woman get to her dialysis sessions, or a family with Autism and Intellectual Disability get help to live on their own instead of being committed to an institution.”
US President Donald Trump speaks to journalists in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on Jan. 30, 2025.
Roberto Schmidt | Afp | Getty Images
The declaration notes that in the past, “drawdown requests typically were deposited to our account immediately.”
Now, it continues, the “Center had enough money to meet payroll on Friday, January 31, and to cover outstanding bills. But we did not have enough money on hand to cover another two-week pay period at full staffing. Thus, on Friday, January 31, the Board of Directors voted to lay off three of our five employees and drastically reduce services to our customers. This presented a dire situation for our customers, who have immediate needs.”
The president and CEO of the National Counsel of Nonprofits filed a declaration with the court on Friday outlining her concerns about the freeze.
“I have heard from a significant number of our nonprofit members that they are still unable to access their disbursements, even after this Court entered its administrative stay, and after OMB purported to rescind its Memo M-25-13,” Diane Yentel wrote in the filing. “I have heard it from enough that I am concerned the challenges may still be widespread.”
In another declaration, the CEO of a rural health center in one writes, “I don’t care about the political fight surrounding the OMB Memo. I just want to help my Health Center’s staff care for our patients. But unless our federal funding is restored, we will not be able to provide that care.”
A temporary restraining order by AliKhan, who said she would rule by 5 p.m. Monday, wouldn’t change the status quo. But it would echo the court order issued last week by a federal judge in Rhode Island in a separate case brought by 22 Democratic state attorneys general.
