A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from cutting more than $600 million in health care grants meant for Illinois and three other states.
U.S. District Court Judge Manish Shah issued a temporary restraining order late Thursday afternoon after Illinois, California, Colorado and Minnesota filed a lawsuit against the administration over the cuts Wednesday. The order, which remains in place for 14 days, prohibits the Trump administration from cutting the grants for now.
In their lawsuit, the states argue that the Trump administration has targeted them for “devastating funding cuts to basic public health infrastructure based on political animus and disagreements about unrelated topics such as federal immigration enforcement, political protest, and clean energy.”
They argued that the temporary restraining order was necessary to prevent “irreparable harm.” Shah was nominated by President Barack Obama in 2014.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday evening, but a spokesperson said earlier this week in a statement, “These grants are being terminated because they do not reflect agency priorities.”
In Illinois, the cuts included more than $170 million in health care grants that go to state agencies and organizations.
Dollars at risk in Illinois include $86 million slated to go to the Illinois Department of Public Health for public health efforts and prevention of HIV and sexually transmitted diseases, and more than $61 million for the Chicago Department of Public Health for similar work, according to information obtained by the Tribune.
The largest grant targeted for cuts is the Public Health Infrastructure Block Grant, which in Illinois funds lead poisoning prevention grants to 25 local health departments and grants that support 674 public health jobs at 96 local agencies, according to the states’ lawsuit. If Illinois were to lose that funding, it would have to terminate 99 Illinois Department of Public Health employees, harming the state health department’s ability to “perform core public health functions” including disease surveillance, data analysis, workforce management and regulatory compliance, according to the lawsuit.
Grant money for non-governmental organizations in Illinois had also been listed for cuts, including grants that go to Lurie Children’s Hospital, the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, the Itasca-based American Academy of Pediatrics and the Chicago-based American Medical Association, among others.