A US judge on Tuesday temporarily paused part of the Trump administration’s sweeping directive to pause federal loans, grants and other financial aid, granting a win to advocacy groups who said the policy would be devastating.
Advertisement
At a hearing in Washington federal court, US District Judge Loren AliKhan ordered the Trump administration not to block “open awards”, or funds that were already slated to be disbursed, until at least February 3.
The judge said her temporary ruling was intended to “maintain the status quo”. It does not block the Trump administration from freezing funding to new programmes, or require it to restart funding that has already ended.
AliKhan scheduled another hearing for Monday at 11am to determine the next steps.
The National Council of Non-profits, the American Public Health Association, Main Street Alliance and Sage earlier on Tuesday sued over the directive issued by the acting head of the US Office of Management and Budget on Monday. It had been set to take effect at 5pm on Tuesday.
Advertisement
The groups said OMB lacked authority to unilaterally terminate all federal financial assistance programmes across the government, and that the directive targeted grant recipients based in part on recipients’ rights to free expression and association under the US Constitution’s First Amendment.