Mayor Mamdani on Wednesday slammed the Trump administration’s pause on federal child care and family assistance grants as a “cruel decision that plays politics with children’s futures,” throwing his support behind a threat by Gov. Hochul to sue over the frozen funds.
The U.S. Department of Health announced Tuesday night it has frozen $10 billion in funding for child care subsidies and cash support for low-income families in New York and four other Democrat-led states, pointing to what it called “fraud concerns.” The funds, health officials said, were restricted pending further review.
Depending on how long that review takes, the funding freeze could jeopardize programs that serve New York’s neediest families and force day care centers to shutter, just as Mamdani looks to expand universal child care.
“I think the decision that was made was a cruel decision that plays politics with children’s futures here in New York City,” Mamdani said at an unrelated appointment announcement in Jackson Heights, Queens. “And I appreciated what the governor shared yesterday, which was her confidence of being able to win this lawsuit in court.”
New York State received $832 million through the Child Care and Development Fund, and $2.7 billion via the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, a share of which goes to child care, according to the governor’s office. Both funding streams were hit by the freeze.
In New York City, child care programs received an estimated $676 million in federal funding passed through the state, according to the Administration for Children’s Services.
“I believe that we’ll be successful in court,” Hochul told reporters Tuesday afternoon, before New York was formally notified of the pause. “We’ll fight this with every fiber of our being, because our kids should not be political pawns in a fight that [President] Donald Trump seems to have with blue-state governors.”
The funding freeze appeared to come in response to fraud allegations involving Somali-run day care centers in Minnesota, which Trump and his allies have seized on as part of their efforts to restrict immigration. The Trump administration has not provided evidence of fraud in New York. In a press release, health officials wrote that benefits may have been provided to non-American citizens.
“We have a responsibility to protect taxpayer dollars and ensure these programs serve the families they were created to help,” Alex Adams, assistant secretary for Children and Families at the U.S. Health Department, said in a statement Tuesday night. “When there are credible concerns about fraud or misuse, we will act.”
On a call with reporters the next day, Ruth Friedman, former director of the child care office at the Health Department during the Biden administration, questioned her successors’ intentions — adding there are “clear processes” for federal, state and law enforcement officials to follow in the event of fraud.
“Instead of that,” she said, “the Trump administration has said that they have frozen all child care funding to the state, meaning tens of thousands of families are at risk of losing their child care assistance, and thousands of child care providers are at risk of not being able to pay the rent, pay their staff and keep their doors open.”
Shazia Khalid, a Brooklyn mom who used to pay $25,000 per year for her toddler’s day care before enrolling him in a public program, said she was “horrified” to learn of the funding freeze across five states, including New York.
“So many programs are already hanging on by a thread, and I’m fearful of what this could mean for my family and for other working families,” Khalid said. “We’re actually in a WhatsApp group — so many families and parents in my neighborhood, and across the city, are panicked, wondering how they’ll manage if they lose access to care.”
“Of course, any individual cases of fraud should be prosecuted. But pulling the rug out from under our child care providers and the families who depend on them — all to further a racist, anti-immigrant agenda — is unacceptable,” added Khalid, who works in human resources and advocates for child care with the advocacy group Moms Rising.
On top of the child care funding, the governor’s office said the funding freeze also threatens more than $3.6 billion each year New York receives for public assistance, domestic violence services, homeless shelters, adoption processes, child welfare probes, and other social services. In total, more than 300,000 New Yorkers are served annually by the programs supported by the impacted funding streams.
New York draws down about $200 million each month for low-income families — the majority of which goes toward reimbursing districts for the costs of running local programs. By the end of this month, the state could face millions of dollars in expenses that it does not have the money for, the rep said.
Mamdani, despite the fiscal headwinds, insisted he intends to forge ahead with his promised child care expansion, citing a cost of inaction that he estimated would be $23 billion in lost economic activity per year. The mayor said he has yet to speak with the president directly about the funding freeze, though he did not rule out doing so.
“We will continue not only to protect the funding that is being provided to New Yorkers across the city, but also to advance our agenda of universal child care,” Mamdani said.
“There will continue to be conversations that I have directly with President Trump, and they will always come back to the needs of New Yorkers, and how to make this a city that they can afford. Child care is one of those critical issues.”