Two courts reject Trump’s foreign aid freeze and refugee ban
‘I don’t know why I can’t get a straight answer from you’, jusge tells Trump attorney.
Two separate courts have ruled against President Donald Trump’s abandonment of the U.S. refugee program and his freeze of foreign aid.
The refugee ban has dashed the hopes of thousands of LGBTQ refugees in anti-gay nations, while the foreign aid freeze has threatened the lives of 20 million women, children and LGBTQ people who were receiving HIV-fighting antiretroviral medications funded by the American foreign aid agency USAID.
US judge blocks Trump’s suspension of refugee resettlement program
US district judge in Seattle says Trump’s executive order exceeded his powers by shutting down program
By Robert Tait
A federal judge has blocked Donald Trump’s attempt to suspend the US’s refugee admission system after ruling that the move exceeded his powers.
The ruling, from US district judge Jamal Whitehead, stated that Trump’s executive order affecting refugee admissions, issued on the day of his inauguration, amounted to an illegal usurpation of the powers of Congress.
“The president has substantial discretion … to suspend refugee admissions. But that authority is not limitless,” Whitehead told a court in Seattle in delivering his verdict.
The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by major refugee assistance groups, who argued that Trump’s order breached the system created by acts of Congress to absorb refugees into the US, while impeding their ability to help refugees already in the US.
Whitehead agreed that it represented an “effective nullification of congressional will”.
The ruling is a significant setback for Trump’s agenda on immigration – on which he has moved to end protected status for around half-a-million Haitians in the US legally, as well as deport undocumented migrants.
August Flentje, a lawyer for the justice department, told the judge that the administration was likely to consider filing an emergency appeal.
Trump’s executive order said the refugee program – a form of legal migration to the US – would be suspended because cities and communities had been taxed by “record levels of migration” and didn’t have the ability to “absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees”.
The federal refugee system has been in place for decades and helps people who have escaped war, natural disaster or persecution. Despite long-standing support from both parties for accepting thoroughly vetted refugees, the program has become politicized in recent years.
Trump temporarily halted it during his first presidency, and then dramatically lowered the number of refugees who could enter the US each year.
The groups challenging his latest order included the International Refugee Assistance Project on behalf of Church World Service, the Jewish refugee resettlement agency HIAS, Lutheran Community Services Northwest, and individual refugees and family members. They said it had several restricted their ability to provide critical services to refugees, including those already in the US.
Some refugees whose entry had previously been approved had their travel cancelled on short notice, and families who have waited years to reunite have had to remain apart, the lawsuit said.
Last week a federal judge in Washington DC refused to immediately block the Trump administration’s actions in a similar lawsuit brought by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. That case faces another hearing on Friday.
Judge orders Trump administration to pay millions in USAID funds
Officials have one day to resume foreign aid payments after a contentious hearing in which a government lawyer couldn’t say if funds had been unfrozen.
By Annie Gowen
A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to pay hundreds of millions in foreign assistance funds that have been in limbo despite his previous directive that such aid resume — action targeting President Donald Trump’s broad pause in aid, which has led to chaos globally and dire warnings about escalating famine.
U.S. District Judge Amir H. Ali gave the government until 11:59 p.m. Wednesday to fulfill its contractual obligations and restart payments to contractors whose work in impoverished parts of the world had been largely stopped during an ongoing legal battle. Administration officials must also provide examples of communication sent to partners on the ground about resuming assistance, Ali ruled.
His order applies to work done before Feb. 13.
Aid groups that are plaintiffs in the case provided evidence that the government has not lifted its suspension of funding, Ali said, and the defendants did not rebut that Tuesday.
During the contentious 90-minute hearing, Justice Department lawyer Indraneel Sur told Ali he was “not in a position to answer” whether the Trump administration had taken needed steps to allow the assistance to begin moving. Sur said the administration would provide further details in a status report due at noon Wednesday.
“I don’t know why I can’t get a straight answer from you,” Ali responded. “We are now 12 days in. You can’t answer me whether any of the funds … covered by the court’s order have been unfrozen?”
The total amount owed to organizations by the U.S. Agency for International Development was not immediately clear, but one development group, DAI Global LLC, said in court filings that it is owed more than $115 million. Separately, the U.N. World Food Program — the largest distributor of food aid — is owed more than $820 million, officials confirmed this week.
More than 10 days of delays have wreaked havoc on some of the world’s poorest and sickest communities. People with HIV have lost access to lifesaving medicines. Those in famine-stricken areas of Sudan and other countries are without food.
In an emergency request Monday, the partner organizations said they face possible eviction and threats to worker safety because of the administration’s ongoing defiance of Ali’s federal court order.
“What the government has revealed is that the government has done nothing to make the flow of payments happen,” Stephen K. Wirth, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said in court.
The groups allege that instead of complying with Ali’s directive, the Trump administration “chose to take a series of new actions” around access to a key reimbursement system, adding new approval processes and terminating “hundreds of critical personnel” — “all but halting the disbursement of foreign-assistance funds,” according to their emergency motion.
Despite the State Department granting a waiver for certain lifesaving aid to resume, the plaintiffs contend, the payment system remains down, with employees seeing a variety of error messages when they try to submit invoices. Many organizations have not been paid for expenses incurred in the fourth quarter of 2024, before Trump returned to the White House.
A spokesman for the Trump administration has said officials will not discuss the pending litigation.
The case is among several in which legal experts say the administration has come close to the red line of disobeying judicial orders as Trump and his allies assert vast presidential powers.
Thousands of federal workers have lost their jobs in recent weeks, adding to the chaos. On Sunday, the administration sent notices that it would eliminate 1,600 jobs at USAID and place all but a small number of the remaining employees on leave, after a different federal judge ruled that the job-cutting efforts could move forward.
Aid advocates believe the Trump administration is determined to dismantle USAID, the chief U.S. agency for foreign assistance, which provides $40 billion in help each year. The president and billionaire adviser Elon Musk have both derided the diplomats’ work, with Trump calling them “radical lunatics” and Musk vowing USAID must “die.”
