President Donald Trump speaks after signing a bill blocking California”s rule banning the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035, in the East Room of the White House, Thursday, June 12, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
A coalition of AmeriCorps volunteer service groups across the country is looking to push a litigation advantage and expand a lawsuit aimed at recouping federal funding for the civil service program.
In July, the coalition won a preliminary injunction barring the Trump administration from firing key staffers and defunding the groups to the tune of $400 million pre-approved and outlaid by Congress.
Since then, however, the federal government has continued its “attacks” on AmeriCorps, has refused to release the funds, and still appears intent on shuttering the agency, the plaintiffs say.
Now, in an 80-page amended class complaint, the groups are raising additional claims, adding plaintiffs, and tacking on the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as a named defendant.
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“Defendants have begun new efforts to obstruct AmeriCorps’ work, now focused on the mass withholding of funds already appropriated to AmeriCorps,” the new iteration of the lawsuit reads. “Defendants have unlawfully refused to apportion and release appropriations that would otherwise flow to more than two hundred grantees and subgrantees across the country.”
In the July injunction, U.S. District Judge Matthew Maddox, a Joe Biden appointee, ordered the named defendants — including AmeriCorps itself — to comply “with all statutes and appropriations that require AmeriCorps to carry out programs and award grants.” The order notably included “shall” language, the plaintiffs point out, which is often considered a sine qua non in legal documents.
The groups allege such statutes and appropriations are being ignored.
“And yet, since the grant of this Court’s preliminary injunction, Defendants have flouted this Court’s order,” the lawsuit goes on. “The Office of Management and Budget has refused to apportion and release these funds in violation of their statutory obligations, and AmeriCorps is systematically withholding them from at least three of its grant programs.”
The affected funds still reached into the “hundreds of millions,” the plaintiffs say. Spending such funds is necessary for AmeriCorps to comply with its own statutory obligations, according to the lawsuit.
The government, for its part, has filed three status reports with the Baltimore-based court, attesting that the defendants are “in compliance with all statutes and appropriations that require AmeriCorps to carry out programs and award grants.”
The plaintiffs allege the government is simply lying while continuing to engage in “blatant statutory violations” by withholding the funds.
From the complaint, at length:
Plaintiffs whose grants are marked with “funding pending release of FY25 appropriated dollars,” “approved, pending FY 2025 appropriations,” or “pending release of FY 2025 appropriated dollars” have not received funding from AmeriCorps because of OMB’s actions.
Altogether, upon information and belief, OMB is now withholding approximately $200 million in FY25 federal funds for at least two types of AmeriCorps grants: (1) AmeriCorps State and National new and recompete grants receiving competitive funding, and (2) National Older American Volunteer Program grants, including Foster Grandparent Program and Senior Companion Program grants. Many of these grants had a July 1, 2025 start date, leaving affected programs without funding or direction as to how to move forward after their grant cycle had already begun.
“The Trump administration’s illegal refusal to fund these crucial community services is the latest chapter in its persistent disregard for the law,” Abbe Lowell, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs, said in a statement. “A federal court has already said these actions are ‘likely unlawful’ – we know they are, and are ready to prove it for these organizations and for every future target of this administration’s attack on our democracy.”
The lawsuit, perhaps not coincidentally, leans into a public policy argument over the Trump administration’s continued funding cuts.
“Once again, the results of Defendants’ actions have been devastating,” the amended complaint goes on. “These unlawful actions are harming hundreds of similarly situated grantees around the country, along with the communities and individuals who rely on their services. Without judicial intervention, countless critical programs will be forced to close.”
The original lawsuit contained six causes of actions; the new version more than doubles that and alleges 13 causes of action – variously against the OMB, the two heads of AmeriCorps, and the panoply of defendants. The combined complaints run the gamut from constitutional to statutory — with the latter premised on numerous alleged violations of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the statute governing the behavior of administrative agencies.
“Defendants have given no reasoned explanation for their conduct, entirely failed to consider important aspects of the problem Congress funded AmeriCorps and its programs to address, failed to consider alternatives, and ignored reliance interests affected their actions,” one of the causes of actions — a combined constitutional-and-APA-based attack, reads.
In the filing, the plaintiffs implore the court to continue on its original track – and give them another victory against the government.
“A little more than a month ago, this Court rejected Defendants’ efforts to dismantle the country’s foremost institution committed to fighting poverty and advancing civic engagement,” the filing says. “As Defendants pursue new strategies to cripple AmeriCorps, now by withholding funds for another set of programs, this Court should once again put a stop to it. Plaintiffs ask the Court to award declaratory and injunctive relief holding Defendants’ actions unlawful under the Administrative Procedure Act and unconstitutional.”
