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Alliance Alert: The Alliance for Rights and Recovery strongly denounces the Trump Administration’s attempt to freeze and cut essential federal funding that states rely on to support families and children struggling to make ends meet, including critical resources for housing, shelter, child care, and basic income assistance.

While the administration claims this action is aimed at rooting out fraud, there has been no evidence of widespread fraud in ����������, and federal officials have failed to substantiate their accusations. This reckless move instead appears to punish states and families based on politics, not facts.

For ����������, the loss of these funds would be devastating. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) dollars are a cornerstone of the state and ���������� City’s ability to operate family shelters, prevent homelessness, and support children in crisis. Freezing or eliminating this funding would drastically limit the state’s capacity to keep families housed, reduce support for shelters and social services, and push more children and parents into instability and trauma.

The Alliance stands with Governor Hochul, providers, and advocates across the state in opposing this harmful action. Stripping states of essential resources will not protect families. It will endanger them.

Health Dept. Freezes $10 Billion in Funding to 5 Democratic States
By Minho Kim | ���������� Times | January 6, 2025

The Trump administration on Tuesday froze $10 billion in funding for child care subsidies, social services and cash support for low-income families in five states controlled by Democrats, claiming without evidence widespread fraud throughout those states after a major welfare fraud scheme in one of them.

Minnesota, ����������, California, Illinois and Colorado will be cut off from around $7.3 billion in funding for the  program, which provides cash assistance to households with children, the Department of Health and Human Services announced. The five states will also lose access to nearly $2.4 billion for the Child Care and Development Fund, which supports child care for working parents, and around $870 million for  that mostly benefit children at risk.

The funding pause could jeopardize programs that serve hundreds of thousands of low-income households in the five states.

The department, which disburses the funds, said it would require the five states to submit documentation like receipts and to justify their spending before releasing any payment. The three programs that the administration targeted had allowed states broad discretion to design specific ways to support families and children in need.

The funding freeze appears to build on the administration’s pause last week in $185 million in annual aid to Minnesota day care centers after investigators said that  in that state had led to billions of dollars in taxpayer losses.

No evidence has suggested that the other four states suffered similar widespread welfare frauds, but Andrew Nixon, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, hinted that the fraud cases in Minnesota led to the freeze.

“Democrat-led states and governors have been complicit in allowing massive amounts of fraud to occur under their watch,” Mr. Nixon said in a statement. “Under the Trump administration, we are ensuring that federal taxpayer dollars are being used for legitimate purposes.”

The department said it had “identified concerns” that ineligible noncitizens like undocumented immigrants had been receiving federal child care benefits, without providing clear evidence.

President Trump has repeatedly used the  to attack immigrants, in particular Somalis, after dozens of people, largely members of the Somali diaspora, were charged in the fraud there. But a vast majority of those charged are U.S. citizens of Somali descent, not migrants living in the country illegally.

The freeze is the latest in the Trump administration’s pattern of interrupting federal dollars to Democratic-run cities and states, leveraging disbursement of congressionally approved funding to punish perceived enemies and political opponents.

During the government shutdown last year, the administration froze or canceled  that primarily were located in Democratic cities, congressional districts and states. The administration also cut federal disaster preparedness funds for the District of Columbia and 11 blue states after they opposed Mr. Trump’s mass deportation campaign, though a federal judge later .

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of ����������, said the funding freeze had “nothing to do with fraud” and characterized the cuts as “political retribution that punishes poor children in need of assistance.”

“I demand that President Trump unfreeze this funding and stop this brazen attack on our children,” Ms. Gillibrand said.

Mr. Trump had foreshadowed a freezing of funds for some of the states, vowing on Sunday to cut welfare money for Minnesota, California and Illinois. He cited the Minnesota scandal, in which prosecutors say hundreds of millions of dollars were stolen from a government program meant to keep children fed during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The Somalians are ripping off our country,” . “What they are doing is they’re stealing money from the American taxpayer — and every one of them should be forced to leave this country.”

Mr. Trump has also targeted Minnesota’s Democratic governor, Tim Walz, who on Monday  for a third term, citing the welfare scandal.

Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois, where  are expected to be affected by the funding freeze, denounced Mr. Trump, accusing his administration of “stripping away child care from Illinois families.”

“Thousands of parents and children depend on these child care programs to help them make ends meet, and now their livelihoods are being put at risk,” Mr. Pritzker said in a statement.

Chris Cameron contributed reporting.

Hochul Threatens to Sue Trump Administration if it Cuts Child Care, Social Service Funds
By Ethan Geringer-Sameth | Crain’s Health Pulse | January 7, 2026

Gov. Kathy Hochul threatened to sue the Trump administration if it moves forward with a plan to cut child care and social service funding to ����������.

The Department of Health and Human Services said it would freeze more than $10 billion going to five Democrat-led states, including ����������, over concerns the money is being improperly used to pay for services for noncitizens. The cuts include more than $7 billion from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, a federal program that provides cash aid and other support to low-income families with children, $2.4 billion from the Child Care Development Fund, and less than $1 billion more for social services block grants.

It is unclear when and how much of those total cuts could land on ����������. The Hochul administration has not received official notice that the funding would be cut, the governor said at an unrelated press conference at 1 Police Plaza on Wednesday.

“This is a fight we’re going to have to take on if we get that notification. It’s vindictive,” Hochul said, calling the threat “a frontal assault on children.”

The state will develop a litigation strategy if the notice is delivered, she said.

In a statement from HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon, the department accused Democrat-led states of being complicit in fraud, without citing evidence for the claim.

“Under the Trump Administration, we are ensuring that federal taxpayer dollars are being used for legitimate purposes,” Nixon said. “We will ensure these states are following the law and protecting hard-earned taxpayer money.”

California, Illinois, Minnesota and Colorado are also at risk of losing funding. The proposed freeze follows a pause last week of $185 million in aid to day care centers in Minnesota after the Trump administration said investigators had uncovered widespread fraud.

���������� State received $2.4 billion in TANF funding in the federal fiscal year ending September 2023, the second-highest of any state after California, according to data from the Congressional Research Service. The bulk of that funding goes to ���������� City and, in particular, the Department of Social Services, which runs the city’s sprawling shelter system. TANF was the largest source of direct federal funding to the city in fiscal year 2025, supplying roughly $2 billion that year, according to a report from the state comptroller’s office. That funding covers 85% of DSS’s family assistance grants, the report stated.

“This freeze means countless families in ���������� and in Democratic states across the nation will find themselves making impossible decisions between healthcare, food, or a roof over their head,” said Christine Quinn, President & CEO of Win, the city’s largest shelter and supportive housing provider for families and children. The organization receives roughly half of its funding through TANF, Quinn said. In 2023, Win received more than $136 million from government grants, its latest tax filing shows.

“We are looking down the barrel of a humanitarian disaster,” Quinn said.