By John Kruzel
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Foreign aid organizations asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday to require President Donald Trump’s administration to promptly pay them for work they already performed for the government, as a federal judge had ordered.
The groups – contractors and recipients of grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department – urged the justices to reject the administration’s request to block Washington-based U.S. District Judge Amir Ali’s order for the payments to be made.
In a Supreme Court filing on Friday, the foreign aid organizations argued that they “would face extraordinary and irreversible harm if the funding freeze continues,” as would their employees and those who depend on their work.
The organizations’ “work advances U.S. interests abroad and improves — and, in many cases, literally saves — the lives of millions of people across the globe. In doing so, it helps stop problems like disease and instability overseas before they reach our shores. The government’s actions have largely brought this work to a halt,” lawyers for the foreign aid groups wrote.
Ali’s order had originally given the administration until February 26 to disburse the funding, which the administration said amounted to nearly $2 billion in thousands of foreign aid payment requests. U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts paused that order hours before the midnight deadline.
The interim order by Roberts gave the Supreme Court additional time to consider the administration’s more formal request to block Ali’s ruling and set a Friday deadline for the foreign aid groups to respond.
The Republican president, pursuing what he has called an “America First” agenda, ordered a 90-day pause on all foreign aid on his first day back in office on January 20. That order, and ensuing stop-work orders halting USAID operations around the world, have jeopardized delivery of life-saving food and medical aid, throwing global humanitarian relief efforts into chaos.
Aid organizations accused Trump in lawsuits of exceeding his authority under federal law and the U.S. Constitution by effectively dismantling an independent federal agency and canceling spending authorized by Congress.
Among the plaintiffs in the litigation are the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, Journalism Development Network, international development company DAI Global and refugee assistance organization HIAS.
The Trump administration has kept the disputed payments largely frozen despite a temporary restraining order from Ali that they be released, and multiple subsequent orders that the administration comply. Ali’s February 25 order at issue before the Supreme Court applied to payment for work done by foreign aid groups before February 13, when the judge issued an earlier temporary restraining order.
Ali, who was appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden, issued his temporary restraining order to prevent irreparable harm to the plaintiffs while he considers their claims.
Lawyers for the U.S. Justice Department told the Supreme Court in a filing that the judge’s order amounted to judicial overreach and had given the administration too little time to scrutinize the invoices “to ensure the legitimacy of all payments.” The lawyers in a separate February 26 filing said full payments could take weeks.
Trump and his adviser Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, have taken dramatic steps to reshape and shrink the federal government. They have dismantled some agencies, fired thousands of workers, dismissed or reassigned hundreds of officials and removed the heads of independent agencies, among other actions.
USAID administers about 60% of U.S. foreign assistance and disbursed $43.79 billion in the 2023 fiscal year. According to a Congressional Research Service report, the USAID workforce assisted about 130 countries.
(Reporting by John Kruzel; Editing by Will Dunham and Bill Berkrot)
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