Civil rights groups sue Trump administration over childcare funding restrictions

Parents, teachers, childcare workers and community members hold up handmade signs during a press conference at Nokomis Daycare Center in Minneapolis in 2025. Photograph: Star Tribune/Getty Images View image in fullscreen Parents, teachers, childcare workers and community members hold up handmade signs during a press conference at Nokomis Daycare Center in Minneapolis in 2025. Photograph: Star Tribune/Getty Images Civil rights groups sue Trump administration over childcare funding restrictions HHS failed to respond to Foia request following claims of fraud against Somali childcare providers and Democrats Civil rights groups have sued the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) after the agency failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request regarding the Trump administration’s restrictions on federal childcare and family assistance following claims of fraud against Somali childcare providers and Democratic state officials. The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Illinois, the ACLU of Colorado, the National Women’s Law Center, and the National Center for Law and Economic Justice, are seeking correspondence between federal officials and far right social media influencer Nick Shirley. Shirley’s YouTube video posted in December 2025, where he showed up to 10 childcare centers in Minnesota and demanded proof of enrollment and attempted to enroll a fake child, and then claimed, without providing any evidence, that the centers were fraudulent. It went viral on Elon Musk’s X, as Musk boosted the video. “How do I know that [the allegations are] true?” Shirley responded when asked by CNN reporters following the video . “Well, we showed you guys what was happening, and then you guys can go ahead and make your own analysis.” Local reporters subsequently visited the childcare centers and debunked Shirley’s claims that there were no children at the centers. State investigators visited nine of the ten centers following the video, as one center had been closed for years, and found normal operations and children at all but one, as it had not yet opened. The video was cited and credited by senior Trump administration officials as the basis for the restrictions and funding freezes. Minnesota Republicans worked with Shirley on the video. In January 2026, the Trump administration froze over $10bn in federal funds for California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York. The impacted three programs include the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and the Social Service Block Grant (SSBG), programs that millions of Americans rely on annually for childcare, food, clothing and other social services. The states sued to block the freeze, and a court order stopping the freeze was granted by a federal judge on 9 January. In July 2026, the Trump administration moved to resolve the lawsuit after the freeze was withdrawn after being ordered by a court to produce unredacted emails from Trump admin