A federal judge has temporarily halted the Trump administration’s plans to withhold $10 billion in child care and family assistance funds from Illinois and four other states.
U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, issued a temporary restraining order Friday evening prohibiting the federal government from freezing the funds for now. The temporary restraining order is meant to “protect the status quo” while the court hears arguments and decides whether to issue a preliminary injunction to keep the freeze from taking effect while the case proceeds, according to the judge’s order.
The temporary restraining order came after Illinois, California, Colorado, Minnesota and New York filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in federal court in New York on Thursday alleging federal officials had no legal or constitutional authority to freeze the money. The states alleged in the lawsuit that the freeze was politically motivated, targeting states because of their leadership by Democrats.
“I’m pleased with the court’s decision, which protects critical funding to support families and help working parents access child care,” said Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul in a news release Friday evening. “There is no justification for this attempted funding freeze. It is a cruel and illegal attempt by the Trump administration to play politics with the lives of children and low-income families.”
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday evening, but department General Counsel Mike Stuart wrote in a post on X Thursday evening, before the temporary restraining order was issued, that the department stood by its decision to restrict the funds, saying it “identified serious concerns in these states that warranted immediate review and action.”
“It’s unfortunate that these Attorney Generals from these Democrat-led states are less focused on reducing fraud and more focused on partisan political stunts,” Stuart wrote of the lawsuit.
The Friday evening decision followed a whirlwind week for Illinois leaders, child care providers and parents who worried about the implications of the funding freeze, which was announced Tuesday. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced then that it would freeze the dollars for the five states over concerns about fraud and misuse.
The federal government said in letters sent to the state of Illinois that it “has reason to believe that the State of Illinois is illicitly providing illegal aliens” with benefits meant for American citizens and lawful residents.
Gov. JB Pritzker’s office, however, has said that the federal government has not provided the state with details or information about any alleged fraud.
Had the freeze taken effect, Illinois stood to lose about $1 billion, according to the governor’s office. The money would have come from the Child Care and Development Fund, Social Services Block Grant funds, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
In Illinois, about 100,000 low-income, working families receive subsidized child care through the Child Care Assistance Program which is partly funded by Child Care and Development Block Grant, according to the governor’s office.
That money goes to day cares and preschools to help offset the costs of tuition for low-income, working families. Illinois leaders of child care centers and parents say that without that money, parents may no longer be able to afford to send their children to child care and will no longer be able to work. Several Chicago day cares told the Tribune earlier this week that most of their children benefited from the subsidies, and it would be difficult to stay in business if those subsidies were cut.
The funds that were to be frozen also go toward providing temporary cash assistance to families in need and supporting programs to help families be economically self sufficient, and toward programs that address neglect, abuse or exploitation of children and vulnerable adults, according to the Illinois attorney general’s office.
In 2025, Illinois received $412 million in federal Child Care and Development Fund money. In fiscal year 2023, the state received $583 million in federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funding, according to the lawsuit.
Letters from the federal government notifying states of the freeze earlier this week also asked states to turn over “the complete universe” of documents related to their use of certain pots of the money, including the personal information of millions of residents within two weeks, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit called that “an impossible task on an impossible timeline.” The lawsuit alleges that the federal government froze the funding without conducting a meaningful investigation, and is now on a “fishing expedition” to find a reason for the freeze.
“The president’s actions have nothing to do with fraud,” Raoul said during a joint news briefing Friday afternoon with the attorneys general of the four other states. He said his office regularly works to investigate and prosecute people who defraud Illinois taxpayers, sometimes in partnership with federal law enforcement agencies.“If the president was serious about rooting out fraud, his administration would be investing more resources in partnering with states and supporting states’ efforts to root out fraud and abuse, but the real motivation behind this action is to punish Democrat-led states like Illinois that are disfavored by the Trump administration,” Raoul said.
Letters from the federal government to Illinois this week told the state that it was being placed on a “temporary restricted drawdown” for the money, asked the state to submit information to the federal government for review about recipients of the funding, and instructed it to implement “additional fiscal accountability requirements” related to Child Care and Development Fund money.
