April 8, 2025
Just two months ago, AVAC led other organizations to sue the US government including the President, the US State Department and USAID, seeking emergency relief from an Executive Order that inhumanely froze all funding for foreign assistance. This case may well help to determine the future of foreign assistance, executive overreach, and the role of evidence, facts, and values in US policy.
“[This lawsuit] is among the first cases litigating the increasingly important issue of the government’s power to issue mass terminations of grants. We’ve seen the administration employ this strategy across a host of agencies. And we’re proud to be in the fight to establish that these sort of careless, reasonless, mass terminations are illegal.” — Public Citizen’s Lauren Bateman
Upon filing the case, the US District Court judge immediately granted a temporary restraining order requiring the government to reinstate frozen foreign aid and, shortly after, ruled that it must pay for work already completed by NGOs and other contractors. Despite the court’s clear directive, the government delayed compliance for weeks. It wasn’t until mid-March that payments began to trickle out. Several thousand payments for past work have been processed over the past several weeks, but the government reported to the court on Friday that 6,000 payments for overdue invoices are still to be processed.
The judge also ordered the government to spend congressionally appropriated funds for foreign assistance – an action they are actively resisting. And last week, they appealed to a higher court, seeking reversal of the order they must spend the full amount of funds that Congress appropriated.
In the latest episode of our PxPulse Live, our video podcast, AVAC’s Executive Director Mitchell Warren and Lauren Bateman, litigator at Public Citizen, which is representing us in the case, unpack the latest developments in this landmark case, including early wins, legal hurdles, and what lies ahead.
New: PxPulse Live – Lawsuit Wins and What’s at Stake
This case stands not only for the principle of fair process but for the belief that global health is a public good worth protecting, funding, and fighting for.
We hope you will listen and share our video widely. The world is watching—and we won’t back down.