{"id":147284,"date":"2026-02-07T15:55:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T15:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/147284\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T15:55:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T15:55:13","slug":"trump-administration-cant-withhold-funds-from-5-democratic-states-yet-judge-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/147284\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump administration can&#8217;t withhold funds from 5 Democratic states yet, judge says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 jsuuLb body-paragraph\">A federal judge ruled Friday that President Donald Trump&#8217;s administration must keep funds flowing to child care subsidies and other social service programs in five Democratic-controlled states \u2014 at least for now.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 jsuuLb body-paragraph\">U.S. District Judge Vernon Broderick in New York, who was nominated by former President Barack Obama, granted the states&#8217; request for a preliminary injunction and a stay against the administration to bar it from withholding the money while a lawsuit works its way through the courts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 jsuuLb body-paragraph\">The states affected include California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York. The five states said they receive a total of more than $10 billion a year from the programs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 jsuuLb body-paragraph\">Attorneys representing the federal government in the case did not immediately return emails seeking comment Friday night. A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney&#8217;s office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 jsuuLb body-paragraph\">Two temporary rulings had been issued in January, when the states sued, that <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/social-service-child-care-5-states-trump-c4af28914687e6b95a3122a225676a8c\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">blocked the federal government<\/a> from holding back the funding, with the latest set to expire on Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 jsuuLb body-paragraph\">The programs in question are the Child Care and Development Fund, which subsidizes child care for 1.3 million children from low-income families nationally; the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, which provides cash assistance and job training; and the Social Services Block Grant, a smaller fund that provides money for a variety of programs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 jsuuLb body-paragraph\">\u201cEvery day, hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers rely on these funds to pay for necessities and provide their children a safe place to learn,&#8221; New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. &#8220;This illegal funding freeze would have caused severe chaos in the lives of some of the most vulnerable families in our state. I am proud to have secured another victory in this case to put a stop to it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 jsuuLb body-paragraph\">California Attorney General Rob Bonta added in a statement, &#8220;The Trump Administration\u2019s actions are not only unlawful \u2014 they are cruel, targeting the most vulnerable among us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 jsuuLb body-paragraph\">The government\u2019s explanation of its actions has shifted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 jsuuLb body-paragraph\">When the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced it was withholding the money, it said there was \u201creason to believe\u201d the states were granting benefits to people in the country illegally. It did not initially explain where the information came from. But in a court hearing, a federal government lawyer said it was largely in reaction to news reports about possible fraud.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 jsuuLb body-paragraph\">HHS did not immediately return an email request for comment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 jsuuLb body-paragraph\">And while the government\u2019s initial news release said it \u201cfroze\u201d access to money, federal lawyers told the judge that wasn\u2019t what was happening. Rather, they said, the Trump administration was requiring more information from those states.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 jsuuLb body-paragraph\">The government says it wants more records from the group of states, including names and Social Security numbers for beneficiaries of some of the programs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 jsuuLb body-paragraph\">Advocates warn that cutting off the child care subsidies could have deep impacts. Day cares that accept the subsidies could face the risk of layoffs or closures. And that would affect both the lower-income families who receive the subsidies and families who don\u2019t. And for many families, losing child care can make it hard or impossible to work.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 jsuuLb body-paragraph\">The Trump administration has targeted multiple programs in Minnesota due to previous fraud cases and new allegations, mostly involving members of the state\u2019s Somali community.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 jsuuLb body-paragraph\">Besides the heightened requirements for the four other Democratic-led states, the administration also has required all states to submit more information about how they\u2019re using money in the child care program before they can draw down the funds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 jsuuLb body-paragraph\">____<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 jsuuLb body-paragraph\">Associated Press writer Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 jsuuLb body-paragraph body-copyright\">Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal judge ruled Friday that President Donald Trump&#8217;s administration must keep funds flowing to child care subsidies&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62569,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[22406,1387,477,116,118,117,4137,99,71272,49659,71273,1110],"class_list":["post-147284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-child-care","tag-fraud","tag-general-news","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-lawsuits","tag-politics","tag-social-service-funds-trump-democratic-states","tag-social-services","tag-subsidies","tag-u-s-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}