A FEDERAL JUDGE in San Francisco announced Tuesday that effective immediately she was forbidding the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from freezing funding estimated to be as much as $10 billion for child care services in five states including California.
The plaintiffs in the litigation alleged that the freeze was political retribution that targeted the programs because they were in “blue states” led by Democrats.
The other four states are Illinois, Minnesota, New York and Colorado, and, like California, are all led by Democratic governors.
After a hearing, U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson granted a motion to prevent the funds from being withheld during a pending lawsuit brought against HHS by a coalition of labor and small business organizations.
The lawsuit arose from letters sent Jan. 5 and 6 to the five states that unilaterally imposed a freeze on payments related to three federal aid programs that provide funding for child care expenses for low-income families.
According to plaintiffs’ counsel, the funding affects hundreds of thousands of families and child care providers. California’s portion of the funding alone is more than $4 billion.
The plaintiffs include organizations representing the individual families receiving child care, the providers of the care, and the labor organizations that represent the care providers and the workers who disburse the funding.
Plaintiffs see funding freeze as political punishment
In an aggressive attack on President Donald Trump and his administration, the plaintiffs claim that the stated reasons for the freeze — supposed fraud in managing the federal funding — were a complete sham. Plaintiffs allege that the funding freeze was political punishment for states led by governors the president dislikes.
In their court filings, plaintiffs referenced Trump’s social media posts as support for their allegations. For example, a Trump post on the social media platform Truth Social said that California Gov. Gavin Newsom “suffers from mental incapacity, is unable to read a speech, and is dumb.” Newsom is a frequent critic of the president and is often mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2028.
Other Trump posts referred to Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker — another frequently mentioned possible presidential hopeful — as “weak and pathetic,” and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as a “Low IQ Disaster.”
In their court filings, plaintiffs quote Trump saying, “Governor Walz has destroyed the State of Minnesota, but others, like Governor Gavin Newscum, JB Pritzker, and Kathy Hochul, have done, in my opinion, an even more dishonest and incompetent job.”
Judge Thompson spent little time at the hearing exploring the alleged political motivation, but she sharply pressed the government on the reason for cutting off the funds.
The government’s lawyer said that there were “concerns” that the funding was being used to provide services to undocumented individuals. When Thompson asked if there was evidence to support those concerns, the lawyer did not provide any but said they planned to look into that when they got more information.
But the government attorney’s primary argument was that a New York court had already enjoined the freeze in a case brought by a coalition of states including California, and therefore Thompson had no reason to issue another injunction at this time.
Plaintiffs responded that they were the direct providers and recipients of the child care services and would face the most immediate harm if the freeze were imposed. They said they were entitled to the protection of an order in a lawsuit where their voices would be heard, lest something adverse happen in the other case before they could react.
HHS accused of not following proper procedures
Plaintiffs focused much of their attention on the government’s conduct. While they challenged the freeze under the First Amendment, their primary argument was much less complicated. They said that each of the programs had a process and procedure for addressing the misuse of funds; if the government suspected misuse, they had to give the recipient of the funding notice of the issue and an opportunity to contest the allegation.
In this case, HHS didn’t follow any of those procedures. All the recipients got was a letter that froze the funding and directed them to provide extensive information to HHS about how they executed the programs. The letters didn’t give a date for the funding to be restored other than the suggestion that it would be when the concerns of the government were satisfied. There was no opportunity to contest the government’s action, except in the courts.
In federal litigation, the standards for obtaining a preliminary injunction are very high. The moving party must show, among other things, a substantial likelihood that it will win the case in the end, and that it will suffer irreparable injury if the court doesn’t intervene immediately.
Thompson went through each of the factors and found that the plaintiffs had met their burden of proof. She focused on the potential for harm to the children and their families and said the freeze would cause them “irreparable injury.” She noted that many of the children receiving care have special needs and are particularly vulnerable.
Finally, in what seemed a comment directed to the leadership of HHS, she said “our country prides itself” on caring for the health of children, “including what we put on our shelves and its sugar content, but we are not putting children first in this case.”
