Trump Cancels Nearly $1B in Spending With 'Pocket Rescission'

President Donald Trump moved Friday to cancel nearly $1 billion in spending that Congress had already approved, using a rare budget tool known as a "pocket rescission" to strip funding from immigrant services, diversity initiatives and other programs his administration calls wasteful. The White House announced the action with just five days left in the federal fiscal year.

The Office of Management and Budget framed the cuts as a strike on "the most harmful government spending," arguing the money is no longer needed because illegal border crossings have dropped sharply. Most of the clawed-back funds had been earmarked for Health and Human Services programs serving refugees and unaccompanied minors.

The Programs Losing Funding

The largest share of the rescission targets Health and Human Services grants that flow to nonprofit groups helping refugees and unaccompanied minors who arrived during the border surge. The administration notes that many of those organizations are led by veterans of the Obama administration, and it argues the case for the money collapsed once the border came under control.

The cuts reach well beyond immigration services. Also trimmed were a Department of Education program for migrant students, a Justice Department office focused on reducing racial tensions, a business development initiative for minority entrepreneurs, and housing counseling services run through the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Officials also pulled $70 million from what they described as "woke" international education programs, $28 million in Health and Human Services research grants, $9 million in debt relief for foreign countries that fund climate change policies, and $10 million from a minority business development program.

How the Maneuver Sidesteps Congress

Under federal budget law, a president may propose canceling spending, but Congress is supposed to get 45 days to review the request and vote before any funds lapse. By filing the rescissions with only five days left in the fiscal year -- and with the House already out of session through the November election -- the administration leaves lawmakers no realistic window to act. The money then expires on its own.

The Government Accountability Office, an arm of Congress, has held for years that this so-called pocket rescission is an illegal impoundment of money lawmakers appropriated. The administration counters that the tool is legally sound.

Trump revived the maneuver a year ago to freeze $4.9 billion in foreign aid, the first time in roughly 50 years a president had attempted it. The Supreme Court declined to block that effort, leaning on the president's broad authority over foreign affairs. This year the target is domestic spending, where presidential power is far narrower and legal challenges are far more likely.

What is often called the last true pocket rescission came in 1977, when President Jimmy Carter rescinded one after it had been properly proposed well ahead of the deadline. The current White House points to that history as proof the approach is permissible.

Collins and Murray Push Back

Senator Susan Collins of Maine, the Republican who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee and is running a difficult reelection race, said the White House acted without warning or consultation. "Not only is the delay itself an impoundment that was not reported to Congress, but also it is a usurpation of Congress's appropriations powers," Collins said. "OMB is an agency of the executive branch. It does not get to decide which programs are worth funding."

Collins said she would work with colleagues to address what she described as illegal actions. Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the panel, was blunter, calling the move "theft from the American people, plain and simple" and arguing the funds were delivered on a bipartisan basis to help families.

Murray said Democrats had tried to write protections against exactly this kind of executive clawback into recent spending talks, but Republicans declined to go along.

What Comes Next

The move lands at the center of a broader pattern in which the administration has fired federal workers, imposed a historic round of tariffs and opened a war with Iran without first seeking congressional authorization -- each step shifting the question of presidential limits toward the courts.

The fiscal year ends September 30, and the 45-day review clock runs out long before the House returns. That points to litigation rather than legislation as the most likely venue for the next round, with the GAO's long-standing position set to carry weight in any courtroom fight.

It also sharpens the spending clash already brewing for December, when lawmakers must again act on government funding. The fight over that short-term funding bill showed how quickly the power of the purse becomes the whole game in Washington. This time the White House is testing how far it can go without Congress at all.