Judge Blocks Trump's 'Cruel and Illegal' Funding Freeze Targeting Child Care and Low-Income Families

A single decision by a federal judge on Friday afternoon stopped a policy that threatened to devastate hundreds of thousands of vulnerable families across America. Just hours after five Democratic-led states filed an emergency lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian issued a temporary restraining order preventing the Trump administration from freezing approximately $10 billion in federal funding for child care subsidies and social services—money that low-income families, working parents, and disabled individuals depend upon to survive.

For now, the funds will continue to flow. For now, families won't lose their homes. For now, children won't be left without care. But the legal battle has only just begun, and the implications of what happens next could reshape the social safety net for millions.​

The crisis unfolded with startling speed. On Tuesday, 7 January, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced it would immediately halt funding to California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York, citing allegations of fraud without providing substantive evidence.

The three programmes targeted—the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families programme, the Child Care and Development Fund, and the Social Services Block Grant—support approximately $7.3 billion in cash assistance, nearly $2.4 billion in child care subsidies, and around $870 million in social service grants.

These are not abstract numbers. They represent the difference between children staying in school and children left unsupervised during working hours. Between parents keeping jobs and parents losing employment entirely. Between families affording rent and families facing homelessness.​

By Thursday evening, the five state governments had fired back with a federal lawsuit arguing that the freeze was unconstitutional, lacked any legal basis, and appeared designed primarily to punish Democratic states rather than address genuine fraud.

'There is no justification for this attempted funding freeze,' declared Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul. 'It is a cruel and illegal attempt by the Trump administration to play politics with the lives of children and low-income families.'​

The speed at which Judge Subramanian acted suggested he too grasped the urgency. Emergency hearings were held on Friday. Lawyers from the states' attorneys' general offices made the case that delay itself constituted harm.

'This cannot be delayed for a week,' pleaded Jessica Ranucci, an attorney from the New York State Attorney General's office, during the court hearing. The judge evidently agreed.

By that afternoon, his brief order had restored funding for fourteen days, providing breathing room whilst legal arguments continued.​

Trump Funding Freeze Blocked: Judge Halts 'Unconstitutional' Move Against Democratic States

What makes this case particularly contentious is the administration's rationale—or rather, the absence of one beyond general allegations. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. argued that the affected states 'refuse to cooperate with developing plans that would end the fraud'.

'The best way to help poor families is to end the fraud so that the money that is available for them. And that's what we're doing,' he told CBS News. Yet he presented no evidence that child care fraud existed in California, Colorado, Illinois, or New York to rival what had been uncovered in Minnesota.​

Minnesota's situation is genuine and troubling. More than ninety people have faced federal charges in schemes that prosecutors estimate may have siphoned off as much as $9 billion from federal programmes since 2021. The scandal began with a $250 million scheme involving a nonprofit called Feeding Our Future, accused of stealing from the Federal Child Nutrition Programme.

The revelations have implicated individuals from the Somali-American community, and the administration has used this case to justify broader actions against other states.​

But here lies the legal and moral problem. The Trump administration has frozen funding across five states based on allegations of broad fraud without offering evidence that such fraud actually occurred in four of those five states.

The states argue—and Judge Subramanian's order suggests he found merit in the argument—that freezing nearly $10 billion in congressionally approved funding based on mere suspicion, without due process or opportunity for the states to respond, violates federal law and constitutional principles.​

New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading the legal fight, called Friday's ruling 'a critical victory for families whose lives have been upended by this administration's cruelty.' She added, 'From child care to shelter services for survivors of domestic violence, these funds provide resources that hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers depend on.'

Her statement underscores what makes this dispute about far more than whether fraud occurred. It's about what happens when funding is weaponised as a political tool.​

The Real Human Cost: How Freezing Child Care Funding Threatens Families

The potential consequences are staggering and immediate. Parents across these five states could lose child care subsidies, forcing them to choose between remaining employed and affording care. Workers receiving cash assistance through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families programme might suddenly have no income to cover rent, food, or basic necessities.

Survivors of domestic violence could find shelter services closed. Children with developmental disabilities could lose support services.​

The Centre for Law and Social Policy warned in a statement published after the freeze was announced: 'Children and families will bear the brunt of these cuts, while already facing an affordability crisis and cuts to other critical public benefit programmes, like SNAP and Medicaid.'

The organisation noted that programmes like TANF 'provide temporary monthly cash assistance, work activities and support, and child care services' to families with extremely limited income.

Without this support, the cascade of consequences becomes inevitable: joblessness leads to loss of healthcare eligibility, which leads to housing instability, which creates conditions for poverty that become nearly impossible to escape.​

By Friday evening, with Judge Subramanian's order in place, those families had a temporary reprieve. But the order expires in fourteen days. The Trump administration has signalled it intends to appeal and press its case.

State attorneys general are preparing their legal responses, gathering evidence to demonstrate that the freeze lacks justification and violates established law. What happens on day fifteen—whether funding continues, freezes, or becomes the subject of ongoing legal dispute—remains deeply uncertain.

For now, though, families can breathe. For now, the machinery of cruelty has been slowed, if not stopped.