A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that a block on former President Donald Trump’s freeze of trillions of dollars in government financial assistance will remain in effect.
The decision by the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a lower court ruling that prevented Trump’s administration from halting $3 trillion in federal grants, loans, and other financial aid while the government pursues its appeal.
The original injunction was issued on March 6 by U.S. District Judge John McConnell in Providence, Rhode Island, following a lawsuit led by Democratic attorneys general from 22 states and the District of Columbia. McConnell determined that the administration had overstepped its authority.
His order blocked the Trump administration from reinstating or implementing a funding freeze initially announced in a January 27 memo from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The memo, later rescinded after legal challenges began, instructed federal agencies to temporarily pause spending on financial assistance programs while the administration reviewed grants and loans to ensure alignment with Trump’s executive orders.
The Trump administration appealed the injunction, arguing that since the OMB memo had been rescinded, Democratic-led states were improperly using the case to secure a broad injunction against various agency funding decisions.
However, Chief U.S. Circuit Judge David Barron, writing for a three-judge panel—all appointed by Democratic presidents—clarified that the injunction did not prohibit all funding freezes but specifically blocked “discrete final agency actions to adopt the broad, categorical freezes challenged here.”
New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin, a Democrat involved in the lawsuit, praised the ruling on X, stating that the court had “rejected an effort by the Trump administration to continue their illegal funding freeze.”
The White House did not respond to requests for comment. The administration could appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority.
Previously, in a similar case in Washington, a judge issued a preliminary injunction in February that also blocked the spending freeze. McConnell, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, previously ruled that the Trump administration had “put itself above Congress” and undermined the constitutional separation of powers.
