Trump administration blocked from $10 billion welfare funding freeze

MANHATTAN (CN) ­— A day after attorneys general from five states sued to block President Donald Trump from freezing $10 billion in child care funding, a Manhattan federal judge issued a temporary restraining order on Friday, barring the president from implementing the freeze on the states’ Administration for Children and Families funding.

“This relief is preliminary in nature and is designed to protect the status quo while plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction is briefed and decided,” U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian, a Joe Biden appointee, wrote in his two-page ruling. “The order shall automatically expire in 14 days, subject to any further order from the court”.

The attorneys general, including those of New York and California, announced the complaint filed in the Southern District of New York Friday morning.

The block applies to the freeze ordered earlier this month by the Trump administration to New York, California, Colorado, Illinois and Minnesota. The administration announced then that the Administration for Children and Families was freezing funding for the Child Care and Development Fund, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the Social Services Block Grant.

The president’s directive follows a viral video from a far-right social media influencer purporting widespread fraud at Minnesota day care centers and placing blame heavily on Minnesota’s Somali community. Although there is some evidence of fraud and mismanagement at Minnesota day cares, state investigators followed up on the video’s claims and found they were largely untrue.

The five Democrat-led states argue that freezing these funds will immediately jeopardize some of the most important anti-poverty programs in their states and put vulnerable families at risk.

“The importance of these programs to plaintiff states cannot be overstated — they provide cash assistance and fund services to help low-income and vulnerable children and families and individuals with disabilities,” the states write in the emergency motion for a temporary restraining order.

The coalition asserts in their complaint that the Trump administration has provided no legitimate justification for blocking these funds.

“Defendants have said that the ACF Funding Freeze is necessary to root out ‘potential’ fraud, but this is pretext,” the states write. “Their transparent motivation is to punish ‘Democrat-led’ states who are disfavored by the administration based on numerous public statements.”

New York Attorney General Letitia James was joined at a remote press conference on Friday afternoon by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison.

At the press conference, Ellison said the Trump administration had not presented any legal justification for the cuts to the child care programs.

“He’s doing this because a YouTube influencer told him to,” Ellison said, referring to the viral video, which was amplified by conservative media and promoted by GOP-aligned public figures like Vice President JD Vance and Elon Musk.

“We’re not going to stand for this,” Ellison said at the press conference. “The bottom line is that in Minnesota we look out for each other… In Minnesota, we believe in embracing our children and civic participation.”

James accused the Trump administration of playing “political games with the resources families need to help make ends meet.”

“Once again, the most vulnerable families in our communities are bearing the brunt of this administration’s campaign of chaos and retribution,” she wrote in an announcement of the suit. “After jeopardizing food assistance and health care, this administration is now threatening to cut off child care and other critical programs that parents depend on to provide for their children."

The TANF is a block grant program that provides more than $7 billion in federal funds annually to the plaintiff states, who in turn provide cash assistance and non-cash benefits to low income families with children. The CCDF program provides $2.4 billion in federal funding to support child care so that family members can work or go to school.

In their six-count civil complaint, the attorneys general accuse the Trump administration of violations of the Administrative Procedure Act, the Appropriations Clause and the Separation of Powers principles.

“In refusing to spend money Congress has appropriated and by using federal funding to impose a breathtaking array of unexpected, ambiguous, unreasonable, and coercive obligations on Plaintiffs in order to draw down their ACF funds, Defendants are usurping the legislative function, violating bedrock separation of powers principles, trampling the Appropriations and Spending Clauses of the Constitution, and acting ultra vires,” the states write in the complaint.

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