A federal judge has hit pause on the Trump administration's bid to yank hundreds of millions in health dollars from four Democratic-led states. In a brief order Thursday, US District Judge Manish Shah in Illinois blocked an attempt to reclaim about $600 million in previously approved federal public health grants for California, Colorado, Illinois, and Minnesota, finding the states had shown the move may rest on "arbitrary, capricious, or unconstitutional" grounds, the New York Times reports.
Shah said the four states were likely to succeed in a lawsuit filed Wednesday that stated they were facing "devastating funding cuts to basic public health infrastructure based on political animus and disagreements about unrelated topics such as federal immigration enforcement," Reuters reports. His ruling blocks the cuts for 14 days while the lawsuit plays out. The targeted health grants include support for state and local departments as well as nonprofits, with roughly two-thirds allocated to California. More than 20 of the grants focused on HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.
The ruling, which bars officials from canceling public health grants based on "undisclosed agency priorities," is part of a broader legal fight over the administration's efforts to pull back money from blue states, the Times reports. Last week, another judge extended a separate order preventing the federal government from withholding $10 billion in child care and social services funding from those four states plus New York.
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