Washington — A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to comply with a temporary order preventing it from pausing foreign assistance funding issued earlier this month, and gave the State Department until Wednesday night to pay all bills for work completed before Feb. 13.
U.S. District Judge Amir Ali granted a motion to enforce his temporary restraining order from Feb. 13. It required the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, to restore foreign-assistance funds for contracts and other awards while proceedings continue in a case brought by a group of businesses, nonprofits and organizations that do foreign aid work.
The contractors had argued that they have been cut off from federal dollars or forced to stop their work because of Mr. Trump’s executive action — and a subsequent directive from Secretary of State Marco Rubio — that froze foreign development aid for 90 days.
Under Ali’s ruling, the State Department and USAID must pay any invoices and drawdown requests owed before Feb. 13 by midnight Wednesday. Ali also ordered the government to turn over any internal directives from the State Department or USAID leadership telling employees to comply with the court’s restraining order.
At an emergency hearing Tuesday, a Justice Department lawyer was unable to provide specifics on what steps the Trump administration was taking to restore funding for foreign aid programs.
“Twelve days into the TRO, you can’t give me any facts about funds being unfrozen under the TRO?” Ali asked government attorneys, referencing the temporary restraining order.
“The government has done nothing to make these payments happen,” an attorney for the plaintiffs later argued.
The lawyer for the nonprofits and businesses said there have been “zero directives” from the agency with respect to the unfreezing of foreign assistance funds. He added that the government still has to make payments that are owed, even on contracts that have been canceled or suspended in the past few days.
Pointing to the terms of Ali’s order, which temporarily lifted the pause on foreign assistance funds, the companies’ lawyer said the Trump administration has “done absolutely nothing to give meaning to that provision.”
The nonprofit groups and companies asked Ali on Monday to order the “immediate payment of all funds owed and due to plaintiffs and other USAID and State Department implementing partners.” The contractors said that despite Ali’s temporary restraining order, they were still owed “millions of dollars on due and overdue invoices and reimbursement requests” that had been paused, but then ordered to be restored.
A declaration from Zan Northrip, an executive at the international development company DAI Global, said that since Feb. 13, it has not received any payments on $115 million in outstanding bills to USAID. More than $70 million of that is over 30 days late.
The invoices are for work done before a cable Rubio sent on Jan. 24 that announced a 90-day pause on new spending for foreign assistance programs funded through the State Department and USAID, according to DAI Global. The company said it is providing “up-front financing to the U.S. government of more than $150 million.”
Northrip wrote that while some stop-work orders have been lifted, none of the 28 project terminations that USAID previously put into effect has been rescinded. DAI Global has furloughed 124 U.S.-based employees as a result, according to the declaration.
USAID managed more than $40 billion in appropriations in 2023, according to the Congressional Research Service, with a large portion of the funding awarded to U.S. organizations that grant funds to local partners worldwide.
While Ali’s order provides temporary relief to foreign aid programs and companies, the Trump administration’s dismantling of USAID has continued.
An estimated 4,200 USAID staffers were placed on administrative leave Sunday night after a federal judge last week denied a motion by unions representing USAID workers to pause the move.
