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- By Brian Edwards, Neely Bardwell
A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s pause on federal funding, providing short-term relief to tribes and Native-serving organizations concerned about disruptions to essential services and treaty-obligated federal funding.
U.S. District Judge Loren L. Alikhan’s order, issued just minutes before the funding freeze was set to take effect Tuesday afternoon, applies to existing programs and remains in place until Feb. 3, according to a report by the Associated Press. The ruling came amid widespread confusion across government agencies, Congress, nonprofit organizations, state agencies and tribes following a vague two-page memo issued Monday night by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
By Tuesday morning, the administration’s planned freeze of federal grants and loans had raised particular concerns in Indian Country, where the federal government provides billions of dollars in funding to federally recognized tribes through various programs and agencies. The funding, mandated by treaties and federal law, supports essential services including healthcare, education, housing, law enforcement, infrastructure, and economic development.
Sources across Indian Country told Tribal Business News that tribes were actively working to access already-approved federal funding ahead of the Trump administration's 5 p.m EST deadline on Tuesday, with multiple tribes reportedly successful in securing substantial drawdowns — millions of federal grant dollars in some cases — throughout the day.
The National Council of Urban Indian Health (NCUIH) identified more than 200 federal programs serving Native communities that could be affected by the funding pause. These range from essential services like the Indian Health Service Behavioral Health Programs and Indian Housing Block Grants to education initiatives like Tribal Colleges Extension Programs and infrastructure projects like the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program, according to a list issued by NCUIH on Tuesday afternoon.
Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith, a Democrat who serves on the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, called the OMB’s order “devastating for Tribal Nations and Native communities,” noting that essential programs required by treaties were at risk of being halted.
"My office is in direct communication with Tribal leaders and Native organizations in Minnesota to understand the impacts and violations of treaty and trust commitments to Indian Country," Smith said in an email to Native News Online. "It's unconscionable that the President would harm people like this. And I am going to fight this because it's an outrage."
The White House issued a clarifying memo later on Tuesday, stating that "any program not implicated by the President's Executive Orders is not subject to the pause" and that "any payment required by law to be paid will be paid without interruption or delay." The memo also specified that programs providing direct benefits to individuals, including programs like Head Start and rental assistance, would not be affected.
On Tuesday evening, the congressional delegation from New Mexico, which is home to 23 federally recognized tribes, held a press conference to address mass confusion surrounding what Rep. Melanie Stansbury called an “illegal impoundment of federal funds.”
“We spoke to Mescalero Apache Nation just a couple of hours ago, and they were essentially told that their Department of Justice funding would be frozen. It is specifically written into the United States treaty with the Mescalero Apache people that public safety will be provided by the federal government,” Stansbury said. “This is a direct violation of the treaty rights of Mescalero.”
Sen. Martin Heinrich said during the press conference that their phones were “ringing off the hook” as they learned the Medicaid portal that handles reimbursement for New Mexico was not working. He explained that one of the Pueblos he represents told him they were concerned about not being able to make payroll this week for their housing program.
“There are so many New Mexicans who were thrown into complete and utter chaos today, and their lives were completely upended so that somebody in the White House can try to take the responsibilities that belong to Congress, and take them away and and have all of that power concentrated in the White House,” Heinrich said. “They are breaking things, and they are hurting people, and we got the brunt end of that the entire day today.”
Rep. Gabe Vasquez said he spent Tuesday morning with the Zuni Pueblo where they faced issues with paying several employees with the Zuni Youth Enrichment Project.
“Sixty-seven percent of their federal funding, serving over 10,000 kids in public schools in Zuni Pueblo, essentially vanished overnight because they could not access the system to submit invoices to pay for at least 10 of their employees that rely on federal funding,” said Vasquez.
Elyse Wild provided reporting.
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