The Federal District Court of Rhode Island (John J. McConnell, Jr.) has ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency to stop holding up funds under its existing obligations to states and nonprofit organizations in violation of an earlier preliminary injunction.
Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia had brought suit in January to prevent the government from “pausing” funds already committed and had won a temporary restraining order and subsequently a preliminary injunction to stop the pause. They subsequently filed a Motion for Enforcement and presented “undisputed evidence” that the funds were still being withheld.
FEMA argued that they were not being withheld in violation of the injunction, but were merely being manually reviewed under FEMA’s authority for administration of grants to prevent fraud, waste and abuse. The Court rejected the argument, saying that the general authority did not permit such a manual inspection and that the action appeared to have been taken in response to the general pause directive from the Secretary of Homeland Security which had been previously enjoined.
It ordered FEMA to “immediately comply” with the provisions of its preliminary injunction not to pause or otherwise impede the disbursement of appropriated funds. (New York v. Trump, D. RI, No. 25-cv-39, 4/4/25.)
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