Federal judge temporarily blocks Trump cuts to HIV, lead poisoning prevention funds

A federal judge has temporarily blocked President Donald Trump's administration from cutting more than $600 million in public health grants for Illinois and three other Democratic-led states, a day after Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul joined a coalition of states in a federal lawsuit to challenge the cuts.

Judge Manish S. Shah, who issued the temporary restraining order in the Northern District Court of Illinois, said the attorneys general were “likely to succeed” in their argument because the Trump administration’s cuts were based on “arbitrary, capricious or unconstitutional” reasons, according to court documents.

Raoul said Trump was “playing politics with critical public health funding" by cutting millions of dollars from HIV tracking and lead poisoning prevention from California, Colorado, Illinois and Minnesota. He said the order ensures funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention along with other funds will continue flowing to Illinois while the case plays out.

“Targeting four Democrat-run states that are standing up to his completely unrelated immigration policies is a transparent attempt to bully us into compliance,” Raoul said in a statement. “We remain unflinching in our commitment to defending against the Trump administration’s continued unlawful directives intended to force us to implement immigration and other unrelated policies.”

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

In total, at least $29 million in Illinois grants are on the “hit list” being held up by the judge’s order, which include city, state and other health centers’ family planning and HIV prevention programs, according to a list of grants obtained by the Sun-Times.

They also included $7.2 million in grant cuts to the American Medical Association in Illinois, which supports gender-affirming care, as well as $5.2 million slashed from an HIV prevention program at Lurie Children’s Hospital — which recently was threatened with another federal investigation over its gender-affirming care for youth.

Additionally, Raoul said the cuts would force the Illinois Department of Public Health to cut nearly 100 employees, end lead poisoning prevention grants to 25 local health departments and wipe out the state’s HIV surveillance system that tracks the spread of outbreaks.

It’s the latest legal win for Raoul and other attorneys general across the country suing the federal government.

In September, Raoul was part of a large coalition of legal officials that won a suit for the release of $2 billion in federal disaster relief funding held up by the White House over sanctuary city policies. Two months later, a separate federal judge released federal transportation funding in response to another suit after the Trump administration attempted to block that money over immigration enforcement.