A US judge temporarily halted President Donald Trump’s order to freeze hundreds of billions of dollars in federal grants and loans, minutes before it was set to come into effect on Tuesday.
Judge Loren AliKhan’s order to pause the plan until next came in response to a lawsuit filed earlier in the day by a group of organisations representing grant recipients.
The lawsuit claims the White House’s temporary freezing of already approved funding violates the law.
In the hours before the order was due to take effect, there was widespread confusion about which agencies and programmes would be impacted.
The acting head of the White House budget office had instructed agencies to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligations or disbursement of all federal financial assistance”.
It said the move was intended to give the new administration time to assess what grants and loans were in step with their agenda.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump’s plan to pause billions of dollars in US government funding was about being “good stewards of tax dollars”.
