Judge directs Trump officials to comply with earlier order halting funding freeze

Washington — A federal judge in Rhode Island said Monday that the Trump administration has not complied with an earlier order that blocked its freeze on federal assistance and ordered agencies to immediately restore any paused or withheld dollars during continuing legal proceedings.

The move from U.S. District Judge John McConnell comes in a case brought by a group of 22 states and the District of Columbia challenging the legality of a memo based on President Trump’s executive orders and issued by the Office of Management and Budget last month, which directed federal agencies to temporarily pause grants, loans or federal assistance programs.

While the budget office rescinded the memo, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said only its directive was being unwound and the broader funding freeze would remain in effect.

McConnell, who is overseeing the case involving the states, issued a temporary restraining order late last month that forbade the Trump administration from stopping federal dollars from flowing to states, nonprofits and other entities that had been receiving assistance. 

But last week, the states told the judge in a filing that the Trump administration was not complying with that order because they continued to be denied access to federal funds.

The states said that the Trump administration viewed assistance authorized through the Inflation Reduction Act and bipartisan infrastructure law — both of which were enacted under the Biden administration — as outside the scope of McConnell’s order and therefore still subject to the funding freeze.

Several grants funded by the two laws and awarded to states and local governments remained inaccessible in the federal payments portal, they said. In other instances, Head Start programs in Michigan and Vermont were not able to access federal funds from the Department of Education, as of Feb. 5, and the National Institutes of Health canceled a review meeting with Brown University’s School of Public Health for a $71 million grant for dementia care research, the states said.

McConnell agreed to demand the Trump administration restore the still-frozen funds, noting that the order he entered “prohibits all categorical pauses or freezes in obligations or disbursements based on the OMB Directive or based on the president’s 2025 Executive Orders.” He said his initial order “is clear and unambiguous, and there are no impediments to the defendants’ compliance with” it.

The judge reiterated his finding that the pause on federal assistance is likely unconstitutional and has caused harm to “a vast portion of this country.”

“These pauses in funding violate the plain text of the [temporary restraining order],” McConnell wrote.

Under his most recent order, the Trump administration must immediately restore frozen funding while his temporary restraining order is in effect and end any federal funding pause. The judge directed the Trump administration “immediately take every necessary step” to comply with his temporary restraining order, including clearing administrative or technical obstacles, McConnell wrote, and restore withheld assistance, including federal dollars appropriated in the Inflation Reduction Act and infrastructure law. He ordered the Trump administration to resume funding of institutes or other federal agencies covered by his restraining order.

The case before McConnell is one of two brought in response to the White House budget office’s memo freezing federal assistance. A second court fight, brought by a coalition of nonprofit organizations, is underway in Washington, D.C. The judge in that case also temporarily blocked the Trump administration from enforcing the pause on government aid.