Donald Trump’s planned freeze on federal grants and loans was put on ice Tuesday afternoon just minutes before it was set to begin.
U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan, a district judge in Washington, D.C., issued an administrative stay to pause the freeze until at least next Monday.
AliKhan said her ruling was intended to “maintain the status quo” and does not block Trump from halting funds to new programs, nor does it require the federal government to restart funding it already ended.
Shortly after AliKhan issued the ruling blocking the freeze, the attorneys general of 22 states and the District of Columbia filed their own lawsuit against the federal government, challenging the new policy.
“Without this funding, Plaintiff States will be unable to provide certain essential benefits for residents, pay public employees, satisfy obligations, and carry on the important business of government,” the suit reads.
The funding freeze was announced on Monday in a memo written by Office of Budget and Management Acting Director Matthew Vaeth. The order directed federal agencies to review funds to ensure programs were “consistent with the president’s policies and requirements.
It specifically railed against the use of federal funds to “advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies.”
News of the funding freeze already began causing chaos before it was scheduled to go into effect at 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, as the Medicaid funding portals for states across the country were reported as down.
The Trump Administration has insisted programs providing direct assistance to Americans would not be affected by the freeze, including Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, student loans and food stamps.
Despite the Trump administration’s guarantees, the Democratic-led states suing the federal government said they were already experiencing problems accessing funds.
“Regardless of this attempt at clarification, as of the filing of this Complaint, the portal for processing Medicaid Disbursement was inoperable across numerous of Plaintiff States for hours,” the Democratic state attorneys general said. “The system for drawing down Head Start and the Child Care Development Block Grant Fund were also down for some states.”
Lawyers for Democracy Forward, the legal organization representing trade groups for businesses and nonprofits that receive federal funds in the first lawsuit, praised AliKhan’s ruling for allowing their clients time to “sort through the chaos” that spread on Tuesday.
“This is a sigh of relief for millions of people who have been in limbo over the last twenty-four hours as the result of the Trump Administration’s callous attempt to wholesale shutter federal assistance and grant programs that people across this country rely on,” Democracy Forward President Skye Perryman told the Daily Beast.