The White House is moving to claw back $810 million in taxpayer funding for programs ranging from services for non-citizens to minority business programs, transgender health research, international education, and housing counseling.
The move, announced Friday, is the Trump administration’s second use of a controversial budget maneuver known as a “pocket rescission,” which allows the administration to target funding Congress previously appropriated.
The White House said the action is part of President Donald Trump’s effort to eliminate spending it considers wasteful or inconsistent with his agenda. “President Trump is committed to utilizing all possible tools to cut wasteful and harmful government spending that does not benefit American citizens,” the White House said in its announcement.
The largest portion of the rescission is $567 million from Health and Human Services programs that provided services to refugees, asylees, and other non-citizens. The White House said the money had gone to “pro-illegal immigration programs and Non-Governmental Organizations” and argued that the administration’s border policies had left the account with excess funds.
Among the organizations identified by the White House were Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, which received $2.1 million, Southwest Key Programs, which received $40 million, and Endeavors Inc., which received $3.9 million. The administration also targeted $15 million from a Department of Homeland Security program providing legal, mental health, and cultural-orientation services to non-citizens and another $10 million from DHS programs supporting legal services for immigrants.
Another $25 million would be rescinded from the Department of Education’s Special Programs for Migrant Students. The White House highlighted previous grants to organizations that supported programs including an LGBT youth summit for migrant students, “Therapy for Latinx” workshops, and support groups for LGBT migrants.
The rescission package also includes $15 million from the Justice Department’s Community Relations Service (CRS), a program established to address racial and ethnic tensions and civil disorders. The administration sharply criticized the program, saying it promoted “radical critical race theory and gender ideology.” The White House cited, among other things, a CRS video titled “Respecting Identity | Law Enforcement Training and the Transgender Community.”
Another $10 million would be pulled from the Minority Business Development Agency, which provides grants and assistance to minority-owned businesses. The White House argued that the agency’s funding decisions improperly relied on race and pointed to a 2024 federal court ruling concerning the agency’s presumption of “social disadvantage based on race or ethnicity.”
The administration also cited a 2025 audit that found $15.4 billion of the $16 billion in transactions reviewed while validating MBDA performance metrics involved “duplicate transactions, transactions with missing or inadequate documentation, and transactions that MBDA should not have approved based on the underlying activity.”
The package further targets ideologically driven programs, such as Department of Education programs that provide grants and fellowships for foreign students and faculty studying or teaching in the United States worth $70 million. The White House said some of the funding had supported projects including doctoral dissertations concerning queer and transgender communities overseas.
HHS research programs would lose another $28 million in grant funding. The White House described the grants as “wasteful, duplicative, and sometimes outright harmful and blatantly ideological.”
Among the examples cited were $428,000 to improve access to transgender care for “BIPOC and rural diverse youth,” $467,000 to study Medicaid policies concerning “gender-affirming care,” $130,000 to study insurance coverage and “gender-affirming care,” and $500,000 for research involving transgender patient safety and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health.
The administration also targeted $56 million in Department of Housing and Urban Development funding for outside organizations providing housing counseling, saying the program had instead become focused on what it called “DEI-centric discriminatory agendas.”
The White House specifically named UnidosUS, the National Urban League, and Housing Action Illinois among organizations that had received funding.
Another $5 million would be rescinded from HHS’s Office of Minority Health. The White House cited grants involving racial and ethnic disparities, “health equity,” diversity, equity, and inclusion, and research into mental health disparities.
The package also includes $9 million from the Treasury Department’s Tropical Forest and Coral Reef Conservation Act program, which provides debt relief to foreign countries in exchange for environmental conservation efforts.
The 11 rescissions total $810 million, though the White House described the package as “nearly $1 billion.” The move, however, is already generating a fight with Congress over who has the authority to cancel money lawmakers have appropriated.
The administration is invoking the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which allows a president to propose rescissions to Congress. Under the law, Congress has 45 days of continuous session to act on a rescission request. The timing of Friday’s announcement is thus intentional and potentially significant. The federal fiscal year ends September 30, meaning Congress does not have the full statutory review period before the money would otherwise expire.
The Government Accountability Office has previously concluded that such a “pocket rescission” is not permitted under the Impoundment Control Act. GAO says Congress holds the power of the purse and that funds proposed for rescission must be made available if Congress does not approve the cancellation during the statutory period.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, also condemned the administration’s move. “[The Office of Management and Budget] is an agency of the executive branch. It does not get to decide which programs are worth funding,” Collins wrote on X.
“The independent Government Accountability Office has concluded that pocket rescissions are unlawful and not permitted by the Impoundment Control Act,” she added. “Any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law.”
The White House, meanwhile, is defending the action as an exercise of presidential authority aimed at eliminating spending it says no longer serves the public interest.
“Last year, President Trump took the historic step of utilizing long-neglected Presidential authorities provided to him under the Impoundment Control Act to deploy the first ‘pocket rescission’ in 50 years,” the White House said. “This year, he is continuing his commitment to the American taxpayer by utilizing a pocket rescission for another nearly $1 billion of the most harmful government spending.”
The $810 million package follows the administration’s much larger 2025 effort to rescind roughly $4.9 billion in foreign aid through the same mechanism, making the latest move another test of the boundaries between presidential control of the executive branch and Congress’ constitutional authority over federal spending.
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