The administration of US President Donald Trump is appealing a decision of a federal court that ordered the Government to resume subsidies for foreign aid in the last minute of Wednesday night, while many Catholic groups that receive these subsidies still have no funds.
The Office of the Attorney General presented an appeal on Tuesday night after the US district judge Amir Ali ordered the administration to supply those funds before 11:59 pm on Wednesday. The same judge, who was appointed by former president Joe Biden, had ordered the Government to resume its financing of foreign aid on February 13. However, the Trump administration has not complied with that order.
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Numerous Catholic organizations They have lost subsidy money Due to the freezing of foreign aid financing, including Catholic Relief Services and Jesuit Relief Services.
Ali ruled in his decision that the general freezing of foreign aid funds by Trump probably violates the Law of Administrative Procedure and violates the separation of powers because Congress approved that money is used in foreign aid programs.
In its appeal, the Administration affirms that the judge’s order forces the Government to “pay certain expenses arbitrarily within a period chosen by the District Court” and said that the Court “creates a payment plan” that is contrary to the obligations of the President under article II of the Constitution and the principles of “federal sovereign immunity”.
The judicial presentation also maintains that the Directorate of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has determined that the order of the court to resume financing “cannot be fulfilled in the time assigned by the (court)”.
“The District Court has ordered the Federal Government to pay almost 2,000 million dollars of taxpayers within 36 hours, without taking into account the payment integrity systems that would guarantee that the claimed money is owed correctly, without taking into account the meritorious arguments of the federal government in the opposite direction and without even addressing the defense of sovereign immunity of the government,” says the judicial file.
In addition, the Administration alleges in its appeal that the judge’s order will cause “serious and irreparable damage to the government” because “it has no practical mechanism to recover the funds improperly disbursed that come out through the door to entities that have complained that they are close to insolvency”.
On his first day in office, on January 20, Trump issued an executive order to suspend all foreign aid subsidies for 90 days. In the order, he argued that the financing was not aligned with the interests of the United States and that it contributed to “destabilizing world peace by promoting ideas in foreign countries that are directly opposed to harmonious and stable relations within and between countries.”
During the Biden government, some foreign aid programs They were used to promote LGBTQI+ policies in other countries and press governments to put an end to discrimination based on a person’s “identity and expression” of a person. A priority was to combat the so -called “conversion therapy practices”, which include therapies that deter a person from adopting a “gender identity” incompatible with their biological sex.
Some programs also include humanitarian assistance provided by religious organizations such as Catholic Relief Services and Jesuit Relief Services, which offer food, refuge, medical care and other services to people in foreign countries.
Earlier this month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the State Department would exempt certain programs for freezing foreign aid financing.
A Jesuit Relief Services (JRS) spokesman told CNA – Ewtn News English agency – that Trump’s declared mission to make the world “respect and admire the United States … It has been obvious by a careless prohibition of foreign assistance carried out by people without institutional experience or the constitutional authority to do so.”
“To worsen things, these bureaucrats are doing this despite the orders of President Trump and the Rubio Secretary to grant exemptions to restore the financing of projects that save lives,” said a spokesman.
“Weeks later, few of these devices, if any, are working again, in clear contradiction with the White House directives. The result includes things like food cultivated in the United States rot in the ports and that already bought vaccines are not literally administered hundreds of millions of dollars wasted, ”said the spokesman.
The JRS representative said that those who report to Trump and Rubio must “follow their directives” and judicial orders “to resume the financing of these initiatives bound by our federal government and already paid by US taxpayers.”
“If they do, we and other Catholic organizations can soon resume the provision of food assistance, refuge and medical care in parts of the world such as Ethiopia and Iraq, where there have been prolonged and devastating displacement crises,” said the spokesman.
A Catholic Relief Services spokesman declined to comment.
CNA communicated with the White House to obtain comments, but did not receive a response to the time of publication.
Translated and adapted by the ACI Press team. Originally published in CNA.
Tyler Arnold
Tyler Arnold is a reporter of the National Catholic Register. He previously worked at The Center Square and has published in various media, including The Associated Press, National Review, The American Conservative and The Federalist.