White House Moves to Rescind $810 million including Title VI Program Funds

for immediate release

On September 24th, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) sent a legislative request asking Congress to rescind $810 million in federally appropriated FY26 funds, including approximately $70 million of the funding that was supposed to flow to Title VI domestic programs. As a result of this request, it is unclear if this year’s Title VI applicants will receive any funding at all as their application awards appear to have been paused. With Congress now out of session until mid-November, it was unable to act on this abrupt rescission request before October 1, the start of the federal fiscal year and the date by which those funds were to have been allocated.

There is a strong legal argument that this so-called pocket rescission that the Administration is attempting to exercise is illegal and unconstitutional. Under the terms of the Impoundment Control Act, the Administration must give Congress at least 45 days to act on a rescission request; its current request came only 6 days before the money was to have been allocated. Additionally, with the House out of session when the request was sent and the Senate about to leave, there was no practical way for Congress to act on this request before it returns in mid-November. Thus, this apparent refusal to allocate these dollars by October 1 appears to be an illegal impoundment.

Further, these dollars were appropriated by legislation approved by Congress (and signed by President Trump) for particular purposes, in this case running domestic language education programs. OMB’s rescission proposal would prevent the allocation of these dollars to Title VI awardees, instead likely diverting them to the Treasury or some other program for which they were not approved. This situation appears to raise the Constitutional issue of whether the Executive Branch is impinging on the Legislative Branch’s powers. The non-partisan Government Accountability Office issued an opinion that concluded: “Any withholding of appropriated funds beyond their date of expiration, regardless of size, subverts both the constitutional process for enacting federal law and Congress’s constitutional power of the purse.”

The final resolution of this matter may take weeks or even months. Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have objected to this pocket rescission. There has been some interest expressed in adding language to FY27 appropriations bills or a temporary spending measure to require these dollars be spent as appropriated. Any such language would require widespread support of members from both parties, enough to overcome a Presidential veto. 

Another potential avenue to resolve this crisis may be the courts. At this early stage, it is a bit unclear who would sue and who would even have standing to bring a suit. Moreover, lawsuits take time and even winning preliminary injunctions demanding that the Administration allocate these dollars would likely be subject to multiple time consuming appeals.

“This is not simply a dispute over $70 million in federal funding. It is about whether our nation will make the sustained investment necessary to develop the language capacity our economy, national security, diplomacy, and communities require. Congress made that investment when it appropriated these funds, and institutions across the country responded in good faith to the Department of Education’s application process. To pull that funding at the eleventh hour, after applications were submitted and awards were expected, puts critical language programs at risk and undermines Congress’s constitutional power of the purse. These dollars should be spent for the purpose Congress intended: building the language skills our nation needs. America cannot afford to say that language capacity is a national priority while simultaneously dismantling one of the federal government’s most important investments in building it,” said Amanda Seewald, Executive Director of JNCL-NCLIS. 

Help protect Title VI language education funding. JNCL-NCLIS urges you to tell Congress to oppose this rescission and ensure these funds support the language programs Congress intended. Contact your Senators and U.S. Representative today through our call to action.