(Bloomberg) -- A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from enforcing a new directive to halt payments of federal grants, loans and other assistance to an array of programs across the country.
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The decision was handed down Tuesday in Washington by US District Judge Loren AliKhan in a lawsuit filed by a group of nonprofits, even as nearly two dozen states filed a separate complaint challenging the directive. Both cases are seeking nationwide injunctions against Trump’s plan.
AliKhan issued her order minutes before the freeze was to take effect. She said the administrative stay was not a ruling on the merits of the case and set a hearing on Feb. 3 to consider whether to order a longer-term block. Her order only applies to funding that federal agencies had already awarded, and would not stop the Trump administration from halting any new grants of money.
The coalition of nonprofit organizations, which sued earlier Tuesday, claimed that even a temporary halt in funding could immediately “deprive people and communities of their life-saving services,” including health care, small business support and programs for the LGBTQ community.
The memo, signed by President Donald Trump’s acting budget director Matthew Vaeth on Monday, was set to take effect Tuesday at 5 p.m. in Washington.
Agencies would have been required to pause “federal financial assistance” and other activities covered by Trump’s early wave of executive actions. Those included limiting foreign aid and federal funding of diversity and equity programs, nongovernmental organizations, “woke” gender-related programming and “green” energy initiatives.
The original memo from the Office of Management and Budget featured broad language, sparking widespread confusion and panic about its scope. The memo stated that direct assistance payments to individuals would continue and that Medicare and Social Security benefits wouldn’t be affected, but it didn’t list other specific carve-outs.
On Tuesday, Democratic state attorneys general reported problems with access to portals used to apply for federal reimbursements from Medicaid, which covers health-care costs for low-income Americans, and the Head Start early childhood development program.