“Collins exploring pocket rescissions ban after Trump cancels $810 million in federal spending”, 29 September 2026 (Photo via Washington Examiner — the original report)
As it ran on the front
Friday night the administration canceled $810 million that Congress had already voted into law — the second pocket rescission of this term, per the Examiner and the Post. The list: unaccompanied migrant children's legal proceedings, refugee resettlement, foreign debt relief, grants run through HHS's Minority Health office. A pocket rescission works by running out the clock Congress gave itself to object, so no vote happens; the process is built not to need one.
Today, Judge Amir Ali in Washington ordered a different freeze reversed — the Department of Homeland Security's practice of withholding counterterrorism grants from states that won't adopt the administration's preferred election-security rules. That freeze is undone, by signed court order, this week. The $810 million is not. No judge has ruled on it; the pocket-rescission process is built to close the objection window before a ruling like that one becomes possible.…
…(cont) Also today, Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins told reporters she is exploring a ban on pocket rescissions for the next spending package. That is the fix that would have covered Friday's $810 million, if it had existed Friday. It did not exist Friday.
Set the two freezes side by side and the gap sizes itself. The counterterrorism grants got a federal judge and a signed order within days. The $810 million got a committee chair telling reporters she is looking into an idea for the next spending bill. One of those is a remedy. The other is a plan to consider drafting one.
The programs on that list — legal proceedings for children without a parent in the courtroom, refugee resettlement, debt relief, a minority-health grant line — don't come back because someone in the Senate is exploring an option. They come back when a bill passes with their line items on it. As of today, no such bill has been introduced, no number assigned, no vote scheduled.
The $810 million stays canceled. The ban that might have stopped it has no bill number yet, hon.
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“The judge fixed one freeze fast because somebody could actually sue over it. There's no lawsuit on the $810 million because the pocket rescission is built so the clock runs out before anyone can file — that's the design, not an accident. Collins can explore a fix all she wants; exploring doesn't put the refugee money back in the account.”
“Pocket rescissions are a normal budget tool, and this money was headed to DEI programs and legal aid for noncitizen cases — the administration's just being a good steward of the process. Senator Collins wanting guardrails doesn't mean the tool's broken, it means... wait, if her own committee chair is drafting a ban on it, that's not exactly a vote of confidence. Did I say that? That's not the line.”
Senate appropriators are exploring a ban on pocket rescissions as part of the next spending package after President Donald Trump clawed back $810 million in congressionally approved funding. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins (R-ME) told reporters on Monday she would once again try to curb the Trump administration…
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., barred the Trump administration from holding back certain counterterrorism grant funding from states that do not comply with select election security measures. Biden-appointed Judge Amir Ali of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia wrote in his opinion that the Department of Homeland…
An election spending watchdog on Friday accused President Donald Trump of committing a "clear-cut violation of campaign finance law" through his stated control over spending decisions made by the MAGA Inc. super political action committee. Citing decades of legal precedent, the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) argued that federal office…
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