The judge also noted in the ruling Thursday that the Trump administration has yet to offer evidence to refute the charge that its foreign aid freeze will cause irreparable harm — or that it has fully considered the implications the pause could have on interests that rely on the aid.
Ali’s ruling comes as another federal judge cleared a path for Trump to begin firing thousands of foreign aid workers and throwing the future of the USAID and critical global humanitarian relief into chaos.
That is the very action that the Court temporarily enjoined because Plaintiffs had shown that blanket suspension pending review would cause irreparable harm and was likely arbitrary and capricious,” the judge stated.
Defendants cannot “simply continue their blanket suspension of congressionally appropriated foreign aid pending a review of the agreements for whether they should be continued or terminated.
Nichols added: “In the President’s view, ‘the United States foreign aid industry’ is ‘not aligned with American interests and in many cases [is] antithetical to American values’ and indeed, ‘world peace.’”.
