Foreign-aid pause likely unconstitutional, federal judge rules in ABA case
A federal judge ruled Monday that the Trump administration’s “sudden, blanket suspension of congressionally appropriated” foreign aid was likely arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act and was likely a violation of the constitutional separation of powers. (Image from Shutterstock)
A federal judge ruled Monday that the Trump administration’s “sudden, blanket suspension of congressionally appropriated” foreign aid was likely arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act and was likely a violation of the constitutional separation of powers.
U.S. District Judge Amir H. Ali of the District of Columbia said the government should pay grant recipients and contractors for work completed before Feb. 13, the date that he issued a temporary restraining order in the case. The ABA is among the plaintiffs.
But Ali did not order resurrection of the many foreign assistance contracts canceled by the government. Ali said he could not order relief that “would unnecessarily entangle the court in supervision of discrete or ongoing executive decisions.” Nor could he order relief that goes beyond what the lawsuits’ claims allow, he said.
The government is canceling 83% of foreign-aid programs at the U.S. Agency for International Development after a six-week review, wrote U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a March 10 post on X, formerly known as Twitter. He also said 5,200 contracts have been canceled.
The government argued that it canceled contracts because they did not align with U.S. foreign policy.
While he cannot rule on specific contracts, Ali said, money appropriated by Congress for foreign aid must be spent, although the executive branch has discretion on how to spend it given congressional constraints.
“The provision and administration of foreign aid has been a joint enterprise between our two political branches,” Ali said. “That partnership is built not out of convenience but of constitutional necessity.”
The ABA is a plaintiff in one of the suits before Amir. The ABA said in the suit it had “tens of millions of dollars” in federal funding frozen for foreign rule of law and human rights programs as a result of the foreign-aid freeze.
The Washington Post, the New York Times, Reuters and the Hill are among the publications covering Amir’s March 10 decision in two consolidated suits.
In a hearing last week, Ali had set a deadline of 6 p.m. Monday for the federal government to pay the plaintiffs for work already completed by Feb. 13, the articles report.
Ali previously set a Feb. 26 deadline for the United States to comply with his temporary restraining order to require payment to the plaintiffs on completed contracts. When the government challenged the decision on appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to vacate the deadline in a March 5 ruling.
But the Supreme Court said Ali should clarify what obligations that the government must fulfill as he considers a preliminary injunction request “with due regard for the feasibility of any compliance timelines.”
Justice Samuel Alito dissented in the Supreme Court’s March 5 decision, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Neil Gorsuch and Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Alito argued that Ali had “shrugged off” government arguments that sovereign immunity prevents suits by private parties to force government payouts.
In his decision Monday, Ali included references from past opinions by Alito and Kavanaugh.
Alito joined a 2015 dissent that said the founders “adopted a Constitution that divides responsibility for the nation’s foreign concerns between the legislative and executive departments.” And while he was a federal appeals judge in 2013, Ali said, Kavanaugh “stood firm when the executive treads on Congress’ spending power.”
Defendants in the cases before Ali include the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. Department of State.
The ABA is a plaintiff in the suit Trump v. Global Health Council. The other suit is U.S. Department of State v. AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition.
The Public Citizen Litigation Group, a public interest law firm, represents the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition. Lead counsel Lauren Bateman said in a March 10 press release the decision “affirms a basic principle of our Constitution: The president is not a king.”
“But we are painfully aware that, without unwinding the mass termination of foreign assistance awards, winning on the constitutional issues does not avert the humanitarian disaster caused by the Trump administration’s freeze on foreign assistance,” Bateman said.
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