Minnesota child care providers and parents have problems right now. But upcoming interruptions in federal assistance is not one of them.
On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Vernon Broderick granted a preliminary injunction for Minnesota and four other states that sued the Trump administration when it suspended payments for low-income parents seeking child care.
Broderick’s ruling does not dismiss for good the White House’s efforts to end child care assistance in Minnesota, California, Colorado, Illinois and New York. The judge must still rule on the case’s merits.
However, it gives months of breathing room to child care centers and low-income families.
And, if the past is prologue, a granted preliminary injunction could be a sign the Trump administration’s efforts to freeze funding are petering out. For example, a judge enjoined the administration’s effort to cut Minnesota K-12 funding based on DEI policies before the case was quietly resolved in favor of the state.
Related: Inside the nightmare winter for Minnesota child care providers
“Today’s order further protects Minnesotans from Donald Trump’s devastating and unlawful cuts to childcare services,” Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a written statement. “This is a tremendous relief for parents across Minnesota, as these cuts would have devastated our childcare system and forced low-income families to choose between going to work to pay the bills and staying home to provide childcare.”
A message left with the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, which administers federal child care payments, was not returned.
To review, the federal government announced the first week of January that it had suspended child care payments to Minnesota so as to investigate fraud.
The announcement came one week after self-described citizen journalist Nick Shirley posted a YouTube video that revived prior accusations of Minneapolis day care centers collecting government assistance but not caring for children.
The Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families said Shirley’s video was inaccurate, and that the day care centers profiled are, in fact, in operation and legally compliant.
Nonetheless, Health and Human Services’ wrote to the aforementioned five states demanding comprehensive information on the families who received child care. The HHS letters focus on the possibility of undocumented immigrants accessing child care money, not providers scamming the federal welfare system.
Ellison and the four other state attorneys general sued on the well-trod grounds that a presidential administration cannot freeze money already authorized by Congress.
The legal dispute over funding comes as North Star State child care providers also deal with staff and families hiding in their homes due to prolonged federal immigration enforcement actions.
Clare Sanford, chair of government relations for the Minnesota Child Care Association, said in an interview Monday that providers are more worried about immigration agents than any effort to strip child care assistance funds.
“Just because we’ve gone three weeks without someone being murdered by ICE doesn’t mean the fear has dissipated,” Sanford said.
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