President Trump on Friday ordered the cancellation of $810 million in congressionally appropriated funding, including large sums meant for illegal immigrants and race-focused programs, in the second “pocket” rescission in 49 years, The Post has learned.
The action eliminates 11 pools of unspent money at seven federal departments and agencies as part of a drive by fiscal hawks to whittle down executive-branch expenses.
“In accordance with… the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, I herewith report 11 rescissions of budget authority, totaling $810 million,” Trump wrote in a notice to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).
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“The proposed rescissions affect programs of the Departments of Commerce, Education, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, and Justice, as well as for International Assistance Programs.”
A pocket rescission is a proposed cancelation of congressionally mandated spending that occurs so late in the federal fiscal year that it takes effect regardless of legislative pushback. It is legally controversial because Congress otherwise has 45 days to consider the action.
With just five days before the fiscal year ends on Sept. 30, the White House Office of Management and Budget identified areas where funds arguably are no longer needed or contrary to Trump’s policies.
The largest pot — $567 million appropriated for HHS to provide social services to illegal immigrants, including through grants to non-government organizations — was deemed to be no longer necessary because of the near-elimination of illegal border crossings in the past year.
Some of the organizations that had received funds through the program drew controversy over their political connections to Democrats and their alleged tolerance of child abuse.
The next-largest sum being eliminated, $70 million, was allocated to fellowships and grants for foreign academics and students in the US. Some of that funding drew conservative qualms when it was discovered to be flowing to transgender-focused projects.
Another $56 million is being yanked from a Department of Housing and Urban Development program for outside organizations that provide housing counseling, which instead allegedly fueled “DEI-centric” agendas of Democrat-linked racial advocacy groups such as UnidosUS and the National Urban League.
A sum of $28 million is being withdrawn from HHS grants deemed “wasteful, duplicative, and sometimes outright harmful and blatantly ideological.” The precise grants that are impacted are unclear.
A further $25 million is being yanked from a Department of Education migrant students initiative, which funded organizations that allegedly encouraged participants to avoid law enforcement.
The rescissions yank $15 million apiece from the Justice Department’s Community Relations Services, an all-but-shuttered office focused on race relations, and from a DHS program that subsidized cultural orientation, healthcare and legal advice for illegal immigrants and asylum seekers.