US judge blocks Trump adminration from freezing child care funds to Democratic states

A federal judge has ruled that President Donald Trump’s adminration cannot block federal money for child care subsidies and other programmes aimed at supporting needy children and their families from flowing to five Democratic-led states for now.
The states of California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York argued that a policy announced Tuesday to freeze funds for three grant programmes is having an immediate impact on them and creating “operational chaos.” In court filings and a hearing earlier Friday, the states contended that the government did not have a legal reason for holding back the money from those states.
The US Department of Health and Human Services said it was pausing the funding because it had “reason to believe” the states were granting benefits to people in the country illegally, though it did not provide evidence or explain why it was targeting those states and not others.
The programmes are the Child Care and Development Fund, which subsidizes child care for children from low-income families; the Temporary Assance for Needy Families program, which provides cash assance and job training; and the Social Services Block Grant, a smaller fund that provides money for a variety of programmes.The five states say they receive a total of more than USD 10 billion a year from the programmes.
US Drict Judge Arun Subramanian, who was nominated to the bench former President Joe Biden, did not rule on the legality of the funding freeze, but he said the five states had met a legal threshold “to protect the status quo” for at least 14 days while arguments are made in court.
The government had requested reams of data from the five states, including the names and Social Security numbers of everyone who received benefits from some of the programmes since 2022.
The states argue that the effort is unconstitutional and is intended to go after Trump’s political adversaries rather than to stamp out fraud in government programmes — something the states say they already do.Story continues below this ad
Jessica Ranucci, a lawyer in the New York Attorney General’s office, said in the Friday hearing, which was conducted telephone, that at least four of the states had already had money delayed after requesting it.
She said that if the states can’t get child care funds, there will be immediate uncertainty for providers and families who rely on the programmes.
A lawyer for the federal government, Kamika Shaw, said it was her understanding that the money had not stopped flowing to states.