Non-profits that sued the U.S. government over frozen foreign aid asked a federal judge on Thursday to enforce compliance with his order requiring the White House to restore the funding.
The legal dispute centers on an executive order issued by President Trump on January 20, the day he took office. The order announced a 90-day freeze on international aid contracts, which were to be reviewed with the intention of cutting those that were not “fully aligned with the foreign policy of the President of the United States.”
The freeze halted programs worldwide that provide development and humanitarian assistance to vulnerable populations. Among the most critical were clinics offering HIV prevention, as well as tuberculosis and cholera treatments. Experts warn that the funding suspension could result in thousands of deaths.
The AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition and the Journalism Development Network, OCCRP’s parent organization, filed a lawsuit arguing that President Trump did not have the authority to freeze international aid contracts while reviewing them.
District Judge Amir Ali agreed with the non-profits and, last week, ordered the administration to restore funding to projects run by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
However, the White House disagreed. In a legal response, its lawyers argued that, despite the court's order, the administration still had the authority to freeze funds, enforce stop-work orders, and terminate grants.
“USAID has broad authority under the specific instruments themselves and existing statutes and regulations to suspend and terminate foreign assistance funding obligations,” wrote Pete Marocco, who was appointed as the agency’s deputy administrator.
The non-profits then asked the court to hold Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other Trump administration officials in civil contempt for failing to comply with Ali’s order.
In an emergency motion filed on February 19, they requested that the court order the Trump administration to comply with its previous ruling by “rescinding all suspensions, stop-work orders, and terminations.”
The motion also asked the court to “order Defendants to immediately reimburse, today, foreign assistance recipients for work already performed and to promptly pay such recipients for work going forward.”
However, the administration responded on Thursday with a request for the judge to reject the motion and cautioned the non-profits against making baseless accusations of contempt.
“The freeze itself was illegal,” said OCCRP founder Drew Sullivan in response. “And this reply only continues that illegality.”
Upon receiving the government’s response, the non-profits’ lawyers urged the court to enforce its ruling, stating that “plaintiffs and other recipients of foreign assistance funding—as well as the people across the world they serve—are suffering. That suffering is irreparable.”
“This Court cannot permit defendants to evade that order. It must compel compliance,” the filing concluded.
