The Trump administration announced Friday it is canceling $810 million in previously approved federal spending, using a rarely invoked budget tool known as a pocket rescission to bypass a full congressional vote before the money would otherwise lapse.
The bulk of the money, $567 million, comes from Health and Human Services programs that fund non-government organizations supporting refugees, asylees and other non-citizens. The administration is also seeking to cancel $25 million earmarked for education programs for migrant students, which it says paid for items including an LGBT youth summit and a program described as “Therapy for Latinx workshops.”
A pocket rescission works by proposing spending cuts under the Impoundment Control Act late enough in the fiscal year that the 45 legislative days Congress has to respond run out before the funds must be spent, effectively letting the money expire unspent. The administration argues this is a lawful exercise of executive authority. Congress and the Government Accountability Office disagree, with the GAO ruling in 2025 that the maneuver is not permitted under the Impoundment Control Act.
This is not the president’s first use of the tactic. In 2025, Trump canceled $4.9 billion in spending, mostly foreign aid, through a pocket rescission. The Supreme Court has not ruled on whether the administration is illegally impounding funds during this term, but last year it allowed the majority of that foreign aid cut to stand.
The last rescission proposed before Trump’s use of the tool was under President Jimmy Carter in 1977.
When the first pocket rescission was announced in 2025, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said: “Reasonable Republicans don’t have to go along with the madness; Republicans don’t have to be a rubber stamp for this carnage.”
Given the timing, coming just days before the end of the fiscal year, this latest rescission may draw a fresh legal challenge over whether the president has the authority to withhold funds Congress has already approved.
