A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration has not complied in full with a previous order that halted the freezing of foreign assistance grants and contracts.
U.S. District Court Judge Amir Ali issued a seven-page order Thursday saying President Donald Trump’s administration must abide by a court order to unfreeze foreign aid funding. He said his Feb. 13 restraining order was “clear” and warned officials at the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department not to attempt to use other labels or directives to avoid the court’s order.
“The Court was not inviting Defendants to continue the suspension while they reviewed contracts and legal authorities to come up with a new, post-hoc rationalization for the en masse suspension,” Ali wrote.
“To the extent Defendants have continued the blanket suspension, they are ordered to immediately cease it,” he continued.
Ali said the Trump administration has not yet provided the court with evidence to challenge the charge that its overall suspension of foreign aid will cause irreparable harm. He added that they had also not provided evidence that they had fully explored the implications that the freeze could have on interests that rely on the aid.
He said the order “does not permit Defendants to simply continue their blanket suspension of congressionally appropriated foreign aid pending a review of the agreements for whether they should be continued or terminated. That is the very action that the Court temporarily enjoined.”
The order stopped short of holding Trump administration officials in contempt of court for not unfreezing the money.
In response to the ruling, a lawyer with the organization representing the foreign aid groups that originally sued over the funding freeze said Thursday evening, “The court has, twice now, ordered State and USAID to resume funding vital humanitarian programs. The government’s choice is clear: Comply immediately or risk a constitutional crisis.”
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Shortly after Ali’s second ruling, the foreign aid groups filed a new motion saying six of their groups had not received payments on outstanding invoices since the original ruling was issued last week.
“Plaintiffs remain in largely the same position they were before the Court issued its order: their owed funds have not been disbursed, and they continue to suffer the same (or worse) irreparable harms,” lawyers wrote.