New Mexico leaders respond to federal funding freeze
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – It was a day of confusion and chaos for many people across our state as an abrupt halt on federal grants and loans announced Monday night by the Trump administration left New Mexico’s leaders scrambling for clarity.
A federal judge stepped in Tuesday afternoon and temporarily blocked the order. Because of that, all programs and organizations should operate business as usual for now, but it’s still unclear what federally-funded programs could be impacted by the freeze.
But things were not business as usual Tuesday morning. Our state’s congressional delegation said their phones were ringing constantly. That’s because our state’s Medicaid portal was closed and unable to process reimbursements. It was the same story for tribal housing programs and the reimbursement portal for Head Start, the early childhood education program for low income families.
“The real world impact is you may have taken your kids to preschool tomorrow and found out the doors were locked and closed, and you couldn’t go to work because they couldn’t make payroll,” Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury said.
Those websites and portals are working now. The White House claims Head Start would not be impacted, and individual federal assistance would not be paused. That list includes social security benefits, Medicare benefits, welfare benefits and SNAP. We don’t know if any housing projects or programs serving our homeless community will be impacted.
As far as what could be in question, the memo sent out by the Office of Management and Budget specifically calls out programs that might run counter to President Trump’s executive orders. The list includes financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI programs, principles of the proposed Green New Deal and what the office describes as “woke gender ideology.”
New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez isn’t waiting to take action. He joined a lawsuit with 22 other states to block Trump’s order and said Trump doesn’t have the authority under the U.S. Constitution to take money away from these programs.
The White House said the freeze will give the administration time to review each agency program to determine the best use of funding.