Attorney General Tong Secures Preliminary Injunction Preserving Access to Key Social Services

Press Releases

09/10/2025

Attorney General Tong Secures Preliminary Injunction Preserving Access to Key Social Services

(Hartford, CT) -- Attorney General William Tong today secured a preliminary injunction blocking the Trump administration’s attempt to gut essential health, education, and social service programs for low-income families. In July, Attorney General Tong joined 20 other attorneys general in challenging the federal government’s reinterpretation of a decades-old law governing access to social services. Today, a federal court granted the coalition’s request for a preliminary injunction, blocking sweeping new rules that threatened to strip funding from programs like Head Start, Title X family planning clinics, food banks, domestic violence shelters, adult education, and community health centers.

“In a rush to punish immigrant children and families, the Trump Administration lawlessly imperiled access to healthcare, education and social service programs for thousands upon thousands of Connecticut families. Their actions were cruel, unjustified and unlawful, we sued to stop them, and today’s injunction shows that the law is strongly on our side,” said Attorney General Tong.

Earlier this summer, four federal agencies – the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), Education (ED), Labor (DOL), and Justice (DOJ) – issued a coordinated set of directives abruptly redefining longstanding policy under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA). For nearly 30 years, Republican and Democratic administrations alike interpreted PRWORA to allow states to offer vital public health, education, and anti-poverty programs regardless of immigration status. The Trump administration’s sudden reversal would have forced states to impose immigration status verification on countless services, threatening catastrophic funding losses and program closures.

The court’s decision halts implementation of those new directives in the plaintiff states while litigation proceeds, ensuring that millions of families can continue to access critical services without fear of denial or disruption. With this ruling, the judge is acknowledging that the administration likely violated the Administrative Procedure Act and the Constitution by issuing sweeping new mandates without lawful rulemaking, grossly misreading PRWORA, and failing to consider the devastating impacts on states and communities.

In Connecticut, tens of millions of dollars’ worth of funding had been at risk. Connecticut’s nine Community Action Agencies, which run Head Start, Meals on Wheels, food pantries, and a variety of other anti-poverty, employment, and training services, had received roughly $9 million each year in Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) funding. These agencies could have been forced to shut down, compromising the education of more than 5,000 children enrolled at Head Start programs in Connecticut and the more than 100,000 Connecticut families served by Community Action Agencies each year.

These programs serve broad populations, including U.S. citizens, lawful residents, and new immigrants, and are not designed to collect or verify immigration status. Providers warn that the new rules could deter people from seeking help, lead to service cutoffs, and destabilize systems already stretched thin. Many of these programs, which prevent the spread of communicable disease or promote economic development, exist for the benefit and protection of the broader community, which will be harmed by the effects of the new guidance.

Joining Attorney General Tong in this lawsuit are the attorneys general of New York, Washington, Rhode Island, Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia.

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