Judge orders Trump administration to quickly release stopped up foreign aid

A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration has less than two days to release billions of dollars in blocked foreign aid after determining it failed to comply with a previous court order to do so.

U.S. District Judge Amir Ali ordered the government to comply with his temporary restraining order by the end of Wednesday. He previously directed the administration restart the flow of funding for foreign aid contracts and grants, including its bills, for now while litigation continues.

But the coalition of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) contractors and nonprofits claiming President Trump’s executive order to freeze foreign aid could irreparably harm their operations who sued told the judge that the funds have remained inaccessible.

“I’m not sure why I can’t get a straight answer from you on this: Are you aware of an unfreezing of the disbursement of funds for those contracts and agreements that were frozen before Feb. 13,” Ali asked Justice Department lawyer Indraneel Sur during a hearing Tuesday, according to The Associated Press. “Are you aware of steps taken to actually release those funds?”

“I’m not in a position to answer that,” Sur said.

The USAID contractors sued the Trump administration earlier this month, alleging they were collectively waiting on hundreds of millions of dollars in outstanding invoices from the government. Two other nonprofits then filed a complaint alleging Trump’s executive order violated the separation of powers and has caused irreparable harm to their operations, which rely heavily on USAID funding.

They argued in court filings that because of the administration's "persistent failure" to abide by the court's orders, the harms they've faced since Trump issued his executive order freezing foreign aid have "only continued to escalate."

"Absent Defendants’ immediate compliance, several Plaintiffs and their members now face the prospect of ceasing operations this week," they wrote. "Time truly is of the essence."

Ali ruled last week that the Trump administration violated his order to temporarily unfreeze foreign aid but declined to hold officials in civil contempt over the transgression.

A federal judge in Rhode Island previously also determined that the Trump administration shirked a court order. He ruled that the government failed to fully unfreeze U.S. federal aid, despite his previous order to block the sweeping pause.

The Associated Press contributed.

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