Nonprofits sue Trump administration for freezing foreign aid

A liberal-leaning advocacy group filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration Monday seeking to halt the freeze on foreign aid the administration has imposed.

The group, Public Citizen, argues the freeze on funds appropriated by Congress is unlawful and is endangering lives abroad.

“When programs like the ones run by our clients are abruptly shuttered, the impacts are felt throughout the world — with the most vulnerable people bearing the deadliest impact,” Public Citizen attorney Lauren Bateman, the lead lawyer on the case, said in a statement.

The Trump administration’s sudden halt on U.S. foreign aid last month caused chaos and confusion inside groups providing a range of assistance to other countries, from providing health care to removing land mines.

The funding freeze led to mass layoffs at contractors who work for the government, as well as grantees. They warned the freeze would decimate the firms that carry out the work and significantly hamper the government’s ability to deliver foreign aid in the future.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the freeze was necessary to review U.S. foreign aid spending and ensure that it aligns with President Donald Trump’s “America First” foreign policy. The administration has pointed to grants and contracts it says don’t meet that definition and, in the administration’s view, seek to advance progressive causes, like LGBTQ+ rights.

But global health and development advocates warned that the sudden stop to existing grants and contracts was unnecessary and cruel and would make the U.S. look unreliable, potentially leading countries that benefit from American foreign aid to turn to U.S. rivals like China.

Public Citizen filed the lawsuit in federal district court in Washington on behalf of the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, or AVAC, and the Journalism Development Network, or JDN.

AVAC is a New York-based nonprofit which received a grant from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, better known as PEPFAR, to support biomedical HIV prevention research in Africa.

JDN received grants from the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development to help foreign journalists do their work.

Both organizations have been unable to access grant funding since the freeze, Public Citizen wrote in its complaint.

AVAC has laid off 7 of its 46 employees, while JDN has laid off a fifth of its staff, according to the complaint.