A federal judge stepped in late Tuesday and temporarily blocked a Trump administration order that would have halted trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans.
In Georgia, the move by President Donald Trump had spurred confusion and anxiety as government officials and nonprofit leaders scrambled to see whether the sudden edict would interrupt money flowing to things like school lunches for low-income students, relief for victims of Hurricane Helene and inspections of poultry plants grappling with bird flu.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Georgia receives tens of billions of dollars in federal grants and loans, according to an analysis of federal data by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Trump’s proposed freeze could have targeted programs which serve some of Georgia’s most vulnerable residents, such as the homeless and low-income children.
U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan issued a temporary stay on the Trump order just minutes before it was slated to take effect at 5 p.m. Tuesday. She said she would issue a more permanent decision Feb. 3.
As the chaos and uncertainty mounted Tuesday, the Trump administration defended the move in a news briefing. The Office of Management and Budget issued a directive late in the day which said the freeze was designed to bring spending in line with the president’s recent executive orders on curtailing foreign aid and funding for diversity, equity and inclusion.
Still, the scope of what could be impacted remained unclear.
Staci Fox, CEO of the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, said the administration’s order has “already caused widespread chaos” as officials try to assess what it means for programs that state residents rely on.
“Real Georgians are impacted by these decisions,” she said.
The White House confirmed late Tuesday that the Medicaid’s online portal had experienced an outage but said no payments had been affected.
“We expect the portal will be back online shortly,” spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said.
There were widespread reports that online systems used to disburse Medicaid dollars were down in all 50 states. There was no immediate response from Georgia officials on whether their portal was functioning.
Department of Human Services Commissioner Candice Broce said Tuesday afternoon that Georgians who receive direct assistance from the federal government, such as food stamps will not be affected by the pause.
As of 8 a.m. Tuesday morning, Atlanta city officials and local nonprofits that access federal funds through a portal were met with an error message that said they couldn’t enter the system “outside of normal business hours.” By 3 p.m. that afternoon, the screen remained unchanged.
That means the city of Atlanta’s nonprofit partners and project developers can’t access any of the already-awarded funds that go toward things like housing initiatives and infrastructure upgrades.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens joined a chorus of calls from local officials across the country urging the Trump administration to “immediately restore” access to federal funding. The freeze, the mayor said, will have sweeping impacts on affordable housing, economic development projects, infrastructure investment and public safety. Agencies like Atlanta Housing and Partners for Home can’t access the funding channels they use to pay people’s rents and other operational costs.
Information trickled out throughout the day. Head Start, which provides early childhood education to roughly 23,000 low-income kids in Georgia, was initially thought to be among the programs frozen by Trump’s order. But later in the day, officials said they had been told they would not be impacted.
Victims of Hurricane Helene, including those in Georgia, could see their rebuilding aid interrupted if Trump’s freeze moves forward, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency offers grants and other assistance to help victims of storms pay for temporary housing and repair damaged property. FEMA did not immediately respond to questions about whether assistance programs in Georgia are affected by the Trump administration’s move.
At the Carter Center in Atlanta, federal funding is less than 10% of the overall budget meaning their programs are not as severely affected as some other nonprofit organizations, CEO Paige Alexander said.
Founded by former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, the center works to eradicate disease, mediate conflict and monitor elections around the globe. Alexander said the decision to halt foreign assistance “will have catastrophic consequences at home and abroad and will do the opposite of keeping America safe and prosperous.”
The pause quickly spurred debate among members of Georgia’s congressional delegation. Democrats criticized the move, saying the decision could cause unnecessary upheaval.
“The President’s suspension of federal grants for Georgia threatens chaos,” U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., said in a statement. “This erratic decision risks serious damage to health care, education, public safety, and local governments across our states.”
On the other hand, U.S. Rep. Rich McCormick, a Suwanee Republican, told CNN the pause “gives us a chance to see where the money is really being spent.”
Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporters Tia Mitchell, Riley Bunch, Martha Dalton, Ernie Suggs and Drew Kahn contributed to this report.
