Attorneys general in five Democratic-led states filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s administration on Thursday, arguing the federal government is improperly freezing billions in social safety-net funding. The states said the money was already approved by Congress and that the administration’s action amounts to an unconstitutional abuse of power. The case, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, asks a judge to order the administration to stop the freeze and release the funds.
The states suing were California, Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois and New York. New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading the suit, said the administration is overstepping its authority by freezing funds that have been approved for the states. She framed the move as harm to families who rely on safety-net programs, saying “Once again, the most vulnerable families in our communities are bearing the brunt of this administration’s campaign of chaos and retribution.”
The Trump administration announced earlier this week that it was withholding social safety-net funding, according to the lawsuit reporting. The freeze is tied to three federal programs that support low-income families, including child care and cash assistance. The states’ complaint asked the court to intervene before benefits are disrupted.
The states said the freeze was ordered after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services told them it was stopping their funding for the Child Care and Development Fund, which subsidizes child care for children from low-income families; Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, which provides cash assistance and job training; and the Social Services Block Grant. HHS officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said that about half of the roughly $10 billion targeted by the administration went to California programs. In letters to the states, an HHS official, Alex J. Adams, assistant secretary for the Administration for Children and Families, wrote that HHS had “reason to believe” the states were providing benefits to people who were in the U.S. illegally, according to Bonta. The letters did not include further details about the allegations, state officials said.
Bonta also said the letters requested broad sets of information from California, including personally identifiable information about program participants, and that the state was asked to turn over essentially every document tied to how it implements the federal programs. He said the request included turning over names and Social Security numbers of people who had received some of the benefits, and that California was given a deadline of 14 days, with the submission date falling on Jan. 20. “That is deeply concerning and also deeply frustrating,” Bonta said.
The dispute also unfolded amid heightened scrutiny of child care programs, the lawsuit reporting said. The administration’s focus, the reporting said, intensified after a conservative YouTuber released a video making fraud-related claims about day care centers in Minneapolis. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, defended the state’s response and said Minnesota was taking aggressive action to prevent further fraud.
As this case proceeds, it follows a broader pattern of states taking legal action over federal benefit freezes; MSI previously reported that the Trump administration’s withholding of social service funds for five states was tied to the government’s fraud concerns in that earlier coverage.