A deeply divided Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that the Trump administration must comply with a district court order and release nearly $2 billion in foreign aid funds to nonprofit organizations for work they have already completed on behalf of the government.
The justices ruled 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining the liberal justices in the majority.
The court did not provide a detailed explanation for its decision but stated that the district court judge should “clarify what obligations the Government must fulfill to ensure compliance with the temporary restraining order, with due regard for the feasibility of any compliance timelines.”
A lower court judge is currently considering whether to impose a more permanent preliminary injunction against the foreign aid freeze.
In a strongly worded dissent, Justice Samuel Alito expressed his disbelief at the ruling.
“Does a single district-court judge who likely lacks jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the Government of the United States to pay out (and probably lose forever) $2 billion taxpayer dollars? The answer to that question should be an emphatic ‘No,’ but a majority of this Court apparently thinks otherwise,” Alito wrote.
The Trump administration has not yet responded to the ruling.
The court’s majority did not set a specific deadline for compliance. Initially, the administration attempted to halt the payments through an executive order. However, U.S. District Court Judge Amir Ali issued a temporary restraining order three weeks ago, requiring the payments to resume.
Last week, Ali, a Biden appointee, ruled that the administration had violated the temporary restraining order’s terms and ordered the release of delayed payments by 11:59 p.m. on February 26.
Lawyers from the Department of Justice admitted that the Trump administration had ignored the court’s restraining order, which had prohibited them from freezing the foreign aid funds. Instead, they argued that they should not be required to return the money due to “sovereign immunity.”
During an extended exchange with Ali, a DOJ lawyer struggled to answer basic questions regarding the administration’s compliance with the court’s order.
Chief Justice Roberts had previously ordered a temporary stay before the deadline as the Supreme Court reviewed the case.
Meanwhile, foreign aid organizations have been facing financial crises following Trump’s decision to halt aid and have been seeking clarity on the situation.
During a February 13 meeting with representatives from these organizations, Pete Marocco, the Trump administration official overseeing the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), defended what he called a “total zero-based review” and argued that some areas of foreign aid required “radical change.”
“As far as payment, one of the reasons that there have been problems with some of the payments is because, despite the president’s executive order, despite the secretary’s guidance, we still had nefarious actors in the agencies that were trying to push out hundreds of illegal payments,” Marocco said.
“And so we were able to seize control of that, stop them, take control of some of those people, and make sure that that money was not getting out the door.”
Marocco suggested that payments for organizations with existing contracts would resume the following week, but the funds remained frozen.
