federal judge temporarily blocks plan to pause federal aid

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A federal district judge on Tuesday granted an administrative stay in a case challenging the Trump administration’s planned freeze of federal aid, pausing the plan for a week and setting a hearing for further arguments Monday morning.

The order applies only to the pause of disbursements in open grants, Judge Loren AliKhan said. And it doesn't get into the legality of the freeze; instead, it gives her time to hear more fleshed-out arguments from a coalition of nonprofit groups about why she should issue a temporary restraining order that could block the freeze for an additional two weeks. The hearing will take place at 11 a.m. Monday.

AliKhan issued the stay only minutes before the freeze was scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. Tuesday.

During a hastily assembled hearing late Tuesday afternoon, AliKhan heard brief arguments from lawyers for the Justice Department and the National Council of Nonprofits, which sued earlier in the day alleging the funding freeze would cause irreparable harm to its members.

“This is the end of the month. Nonprofits and grant recipients are facing down payroll, they’re facing down rent payments, and there are people who depend on these services, not just my clients and their members, but also members of the public who are downstream from this,” Jessica Morton, a lawyer for the nonprofit groups, said during the hearing. “The chaos caused by the complexity and the ambiguity of OMB’s supposed guidance has already caused questions in the public.”

A lawyer for the Justice Department pushed back against the nonprofit groups’ claims, saying they hadn’t shown that any delay in receiving federal funds would force them to close their doors or lay off staff members.

AliKhan said: “I am very sympathetic to your argument that Ms. Morton has not identified a particular grantee that is going to be missing a paycheck from the federal government tomorrow, but I think that’s in part from the government’s own making. I mean, it seems like this was only announced through the press this morning, and it takes a while to marshal your plaintiffs and get affidavits on both sides.”

stice Department lawyer Daniel Schwei responded: “I think that just highlights how speculative it is, the claimed harms, to excuse the plaintiffs of the obligation of saying this particular grant is due for payment within the next couple of days and without that payment we will suffer X, Y, Z harms.”

Whether or not the nonprofit groups are able to identify specific harms caused by the freeze will be central to their chances that AliKhan would grant a temporary restraining order.

The planned freeze is part of a sweeping effort by President Donald Trump and his advisers to eliminate government spending that's not in line with his agenda.

The acting director of the Office of Management and Budget announced the move Monday night in a memo that said agencies had to "temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal."

The freeze immediately sparked confusion about exactly what types of federal spending it would affect. And Tuesday's court order was just the first step in what's expected to be a major legal battle that could quickly end up before the Supreme Court.