Federal judge blocks new Trump conditions for mass transit, homelessness grants

The Hill

08-05-2025

The Trump administration may not, for now, impose new conditions furthering the president's agenda on certain mass transit and homelessness services grants, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
Senior U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein, an appointee of former President Carter, temporarily blocked the administration from placing the constraints on hundreds of millions of dollars worth of grants for the local governments that challenged them, from the Seattle area to New York City.
The constraints were meant to bolster core tenets of President Trump's sweeping second term agenda, the eight cities and counties that sued said, spanning efforts to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies; facilitate mass deportations; and make information about lawful abortions less accessible.
The challengers wrote in court filings that some plaintiffs were directed to decide whether to agree to the conditions or forfeit federal funding as soon as Thursday, which would have slashed 'critical' programs and services, forced workforce reductions and significantly impacted their budgets.
'Defendants have put Plaintiffs in the position of having to choose between accepting conditions that they believe are unconstitutional, and risking the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grant funding, including funding that they have already budgeted and are committed to spending,' Rothstein wrote in a terse five-page order.
The Trump administration argued that lawsuit amounts to a contract dispute and should have been brought in the Court of Federal Claims, not before Rothstein.
However, the judge rejected those arguments, finding that the challengers asserted claims based on statutory and constitutional rights, not a contract claim, and the injunctive relief they seek would not be available to them in the other venue.
The order bars the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Transportation and the Federal Transit Administration from enforcing the new conditions or withholding funding for 14 days. The local jurisdictions will likely seek longer-term relief, now that the pause is in place.
Boston and New York City, the city and county of San Francisco and Santa Clara County in California and Pierce and Snohomish Counties in Washington state sued over changes to homelessness services grants. Washington state's King County, which includes Seattle, sued over the homelessness grant condition changes and mass transit funding.