Trump strips $810 million in public funds to defy Congress
By Alma Cordero · Reporting from El Paso ·
The Trump administration weaponized a disputed budget loophole to cancel $810 million in congressionally approved funds, provoking bipartisan fury against an illegal executive theft.
Executive overreach targets funds for refugees, minorities, and immigrant services
President Donald Trump announced on Friday that he is seeking to cancel federal funding, deploying a disputed budget mechanism to nullify $810 million in spending approved by Congress. Time Magazine reported that OMB Director Russell Vought submitted the requests on Friday, claiming the move is valid under the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. The targeted funds primarily serve children, minorities, and immigrants. When an administration bypasses the legislature to starve community programs, it is not practicing fiscal responsibility. It is running a shadow budget that treats the separation of powers as an inconvenient obstacle.
The White House submitted the request to House Speaker Mike Johnson just days before the end of the fiscal year on September 30. The administration seeks to cancel $567 million for the Refugee and Entrant Assistance account, which funds Office of Refugee Resettlement programs under HHS. It argues the office is overfunded because Trump’s border policies curbed border crossings. The cuts also target Department of Homeland Security funding for nonprofits providing social and mental health services to migrants. These include the Alternatives to Detention-Case Management Pilot Program and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Citizenship and Integration grant program. Additional clawbacks hit the Department of Education’s Special Programs for Migrant Students, Department of Housing and Urban Development housing counseling services, a Department of Justice office focused on reducing racial tensions, and the Minority Business Development Agency.
As reported by Asharq Al-Awsat, the White House stated that President Trump is committed to using every possible tool to cut wasteful and harmful government spending that does not benefit American citizens. But Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress, told Time Magazine that the administration has picked a bunch of things that they hate, and they say, well, we are just not going to do those. This executive branch uses a technical loophole in the budget law to unilaterally cancel funds that Congress specifically mandated for public services. That mechanism is the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, a federal law that governs the role of Congress in the budget process.
Bipartisan outrage meets the White House shadow budget
The response from lawmakers was immediate and fierce. The Washington Post noted that lawmakers in both parties blasted the plan, stating the president had no right to defy Congress in how he directs federal funding. Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, wrote in an X post that the pocket rescission shows that OMB intentionally withheld these funds for months to execute this unlawful cancellation of appropriations that were approved on a bipartisan basis and signed into law. Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington called the move theft from the American people. She stated that every Republican who voted for these bills should be furious because Vought is saying their votes do not count. Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley called pocket rescissions an illegal line item veto, noting that the president is canceling the lines of spending he does not like.
The Government Accountability Office asserted the move is an illegal sidestepping of the constitutionally protected separation of powers and Congress's power of the purse. The GAO wrote that this application of the Impoundment Control Act would cede Congress’s power of the purse by allowing a president to, in effect, change the law by shortening the period of availability for fixed-period funds. Zachary Price, a professor at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, told Time Magazine that it is perverse to read that statute as creating a mechanism for unilaterally canceling funds. Price asked why people would agree to spending packages in the first place if the executive branch can come in and effectively impose a party-line view of the appropriations.
This strategy mirrors the Trump administration's withholding of military aid to Ukraine in 2019. There, the president unilaterally blocked funds approved by Congress for a specific foreign policy goal, leading to accusations of abusing executive power. Just as executive surrogates pressured foreign actors by freezing a congressionally mandated $400 million military aid package, today's OMB uses the clock and the Impoundment Control Act to starve domestic programs. Last year, the administration used the same maneuver to cancel $4.9 billion in foreign aid. Jimmy Carter was the last president to use this authority.
The courts and Congress must stop the executive veto
The administration maintains that these cuts put Americans first and target non-citizens, but the rule of law requires more than political slogans. When the executive branch can unilaterally impound funds authorized by both chambers of Congress and signed into law, the constitutional balance collapses. If Congress wanted a president to have that authority, the GAO noted, it would need to change the law. Instead, the administration relies on a pocket rescission. That is a disputed maneuver where the president submits the rescission proposal on a date less than 45 days before the end of the fiscal year on September 30 to circumvent Congress's ability to disapprove the cuts.
Nonprofit organizations and legal advocacy groups will likely file emergency federal lawsuits seeking injunctions, mirroring the 2025 foreign aid challenge that reached the Supreme Court in Department of State v. AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition. But relying solely on judicial intervention leaves the legislative branch weakened and exposed. Congress must fight these illegal cuts in court and slap reappropriated funds back onto targeted programs in future spending bills. It must also strip the Impoundment Control Act of any ambiguity that allows a hostile executive to steal the power of the purse.
Sources
- The Washington Post: Lawmakers slam Trump’s move to cancel $810M in funding approved by Congress
- Time Magazine: What Is a ‘Pocket Rescission’? Inside Trump’s Move to Cancel $810 Million in Federal Funding
- CNN: Trump admin cancels funding for refugees, immigrant detainees and others
- CNBC: White House moves to block $810 million in funding through pocket rescission
- Asharq Al-Awsat: ترمب يسعى لحجب 800 مليون دولار من أموال برامج الهجرة والأقليات