Civil Rights Groups File Lawsuit Against the HHS for Withholding Information About Child Care Funding Restrictions
Lawsuit Seeks Correspondence Between Influencer Nick Shirley Whose Content Sparked the Administration’s Attacks
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 20, 2026
CONTACT:
Ricardo Mimbela, ACLU, media@aclu.org
National Women’s Law Center, press@nwlc.org
ACLU of Illinois, media@aclu-il.org
Patrick Fowler, National Center for Law and Economic Justice, fowler@nclej.org
Erica Tinsley, ACLU of Colorado, media@aclu-co.org
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, civil rights groups filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for failing to respond to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking transparency about the Trump administration’s unprecedented restrictions on federal child care and family assistance funding following unsubstantiated fraud allegations against Somali child care providers and Democratic state officials. The request includes communication records between federal officials and YouTube creator Nick Shirley, whose viral video was publicly amplified and credited by senior administration officials as the basis for the restrictions.
“The public deserves to know why the Trump administration is restricting access to critical child care and family assistance funds that hundreds of thousands of families rely on,” said Linda Morris, senior staff attorney at the ACLU Women’s Rights Project. “These restrictions are a threat to the very programs that help families stay afloat and enable parents to work, attend school, and care for their children. We are going to court to ensure the public gets the transparency that federal law requires.”
“The administration cannot rip away vital child care funding from states that women and families rely on, and then hide how or why it made that decision,” said Alison Tanner, a director of litigation at the National Women’s Law Center. “The fact that they appear to have taken action based on a video made by a known YouTube provocateur — and continue to peddle racist attacks against the Somali community as justification — should further alarm all of us who care about the wellbeing of women, children, and democracy. The public deserves answers, and we are prepared to use every legal tool at our disposal to uncover the truth and hold the administration accountable.”
“The Trump administration has wreaked havoc on low-income families through these devastating cuts to child care,” said Saima Akhtar, senior attorney at the National Center for Law and Economic Justice. “Make no mistake — these unfounded allegations of ‘fraud’ are being used as a pre-text to dismantle the social safety net. We refuse to be silenced while this administration decimates life-saving public benefits programs.”
In March, civil rights groups sent a FOIA request seeking records concerning the adoption, implementation, and enforcement of the nationwide Defend the Spend policy and the sweeping five-state funding freeze targeting Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and Social Services Block Grant (SSBG) dollars. In late December and early January, HHS froze access to more than $10 billion in these funds for California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York, while imposing new burdensome documentation and approval requirements on states nationwide.
The administration has refused to disclose information to the public about its actions, including through its sudden reversal of the funding freeze in an apparent attempt to avoid being required to produce officials’ communications about these attacks in pending litigation. This only heightens the need for transparency into how the Defend the Spend policy and funding freeze were adopted and who was involved.
The restrictions on child care funding have already caused widespread concern and some payment delays to child care providers, threatening access to essential child care, family assistance, and social services that enable families with low incomes to work, attend school, and meet basic needs. These disruptions place enormous strain on families who depend on stable, reliable child care to remain in the workforce. To date, HHS has not released any records in response to the FOIA request.
“We will not sit back as the Trump administration works in the shadows to create damaging policies that are decimating much-needed financial resources that support immigrant families across the country and in Colorado,” said Tim Macdonald, ACLU of Colorado legal director. “The Freedom of Information Act was created so that organizations and ordinary citizens could hold the U.S. government accountable, and we will fight to ensure that the executive branch follows federal law and gives the public the transparency it deserves.”
“For more than a year, the Trump administration has attempted to use various policy and funding pressure points in an attempt to strongarm Illinois leaders to change our policies,” said Melissa Staas, senior supervising attorney at the ACLU of Illinois. “We have asked the administration for its records to see if the freezing of funding for child care and family assistance in our state is the latest example of this retributive approach to Illinois. Given the harm experienced by folks in our state, we deserve transparency.”
The lawsuit was filed by 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, seeks a court order requiring HHS to promptly process the request and release all non-exempt records. The FOIA further requests communications referencing both “fraud” and “Somali,” as well as records related to statements and actions by President Trump and other officials that appear to scapegoat Somali and immigrant communities in justifying the funding restrictions.
A copy of the lawsuit can be found here.
A copy of the FOIA request can be found here.
This statement is available online here.
