Office of the
Illinois Attorney General
Kwame Raoul

Chicago – Attorney General Kwame Raoul today issued the following statement after a federal court judge granted Raoul’s motion for a temporary restraining order, enjoined the federal government from halting public health grants to states, and rescinded the public health grant terminations that have already occurred. On Wednesday, Raoul led attorneys general from California, Colorado and Minnesota in suing the Trump administration over the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) directive to target those states and unlawfully cut more than $600 million in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) grants, based on its disagreements with policies in those states.

“The Trump administration abruptly terminated more than $600 million in CDC grants that allow states to track disease outbreaks, maintain and improve their data systems, and collect basic public health data the CDC relies upon. This unprecedented action is callous, arbitrary and politically based. Targeting four Democrat-run states that are standing up to his completely unrelated immigration policies is a transparent attempt to bully us into compliance. The president may be playing politics with critical public health funding, including more than $100 million to Illinois, but our residents are the ones who pay the price. Illinoisans cannot afford the hundreds of lost jobs, in the form of laid off public health professionals, or the devastation these cuts would cause to our public health infrastructure.

“This TRO means that Illinois will continue to receive CDC grant funding while the order is in place. 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.”

On Feb. 9, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) notified Congress of its intent to terminate CDC grant funding in those four states without providing any specific reasons. Cuts to Illinois’ public health programs alone exceed $100 million. In their complaint, Raoul and the coalition allege that OMB’s directive commanding agencies to cut funding, along with its implementation, violates the Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act because it is arbitrary and capricious and exceeds the agencies’ statutory authority.