The White House moved Friday to cancel nearly $1 billion in congressionally approved spending, using a late-fiscal-year maneuver that leaves lawmakers only days to respond before the money expires.

The administration calls the action a “pocket rescission” and says it will eliminate programs that no longer serve federal priorities. The White House said the largest proposed reduction is $567 million for Health and Human Services programs serving refugees, asylum seekers and other noncitizens. The package also reaches education, housing counseling, minority-business development, civil-rights mediation and health-research grants.

The immediate savings are modest beside a federal budget measured in trillions. The larger consequence is institutional: President Donald Trump is testing whether an administration can effectively erase appropriations by sending Congress a rescission request so near the September 30 fiscal-year deadline that the money expires before lawmakers can complete the review process.

What the package would cut

The administration’s release lists $15 million for a Homeland Security case-management program for migrants, $10 million for immigration-service grants and $25 million for migrant-student education. It also targets $15 million for the Justice Department’s Community Relations Service, $70 million for international-education programs and $56 million for housing-counseling grants.

Other proposed reductions include $28 million in HHS research funding, $10 million for Minority Business Development Agency programs, $9 million tied to foreign debt relief for conservation projects and $5 million for the HHS Office of Minority Health. The administration characterizes the programs as outdated, duplicative or ideologically driven. Its public list uses sharply partisan descriptions of recipients and research topics, claims that should be understood as the administration’s rationale rather than independent findings.

The detailed amounts publicly itemized by the White House total about $810 million, while the administration describes the full action as nearly $1 billion. An AP report said most of the cuts concern HHS programs for refugees and unaccompanied minors, with additional reductions spread across the Education, Justice, Treasury, Commerce and Housing departments.

Presidents may ask Congress to cancel budget authority under the Impoundment Control Act. The governing federal law permits proposed funds to be withheld while Congress considers a rescission bill, but says the money must be made available unless Congress acts within a 45-day period.

The dispute is whether that temporary withholding power can be used when an appropriation is about to expire. Trump sent the request with five days remaining in the fiscal year. Even if Congress rejects or ignores the proposal, agencies may have no practical opportunity to obligate the money before September 30.

A current Congressional Research Service analysis explains that Section 1012 requires withheld funds to be made available if Congress has not enacted a rescission during the prescribed period. It also notes that Congress is not required to vote on a presidential request. That framework normally leaves the existing appropriation in force unless both chambers pass a bill changing it.

GAO says the maneuver is unlawful

The Government Accountability Office, Congress’s nonpartisan audit and legal arm, says pocket rescissions are not authorized. In a 2018 legal opinion, GAO concluded that the act does not let a president shorten the life of an appropriation by submitting a request immediately before its expiration. Its 2025 explainer says funds must remain available for prudent obligation before they expire if Congress has not approved the cancellation.

The White House takes the opposite view. It says the Impoundment Control Act provides the authority and presents the move as a continuation of Trump’s effort to control wasteful spending. The administration also points to its use of the same mechanism in 2025, when it sought to withhold billions of dollars in foreign aid.

Congressional resistance crosses party lines

Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, said the administration acted without warning and called the move illegal. Collins argued that the executive branch cannot substitute its policy judgment for Congress’s enacted spending decisions. Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the panel’s top Democrat, likewise accused the White House of taking funds that Congress approved on a bipartisan basis.

The objections matter because the conflict is not a conventional debate over next year’s budget. Congress already enacted these appropriations. If the maneuver succeeds without a congressional vote, future presidents could use timing to cancel disfavored programs while formally preserving the statute’s 45-day review language.

What happens next

Congress could enact legislation directing the money to be released or extend the availability of the affected funds, but the House is out of session through the November election, according to AP. Litigation is also possible, although plaintiffs would need standing and a remedy before the appropriations expire.

The Supreme Court allowed Trump’s 2025 foreign-aid withholding to continue on an emergency basis. That order was preliminary and involved the president’s foreign-affairs authority; it did not definitively validate pocket rescissions for domestic programs. Contemporary Reuters coverage described the ruling as permitting roughly $4 billion in foreign aid to remain withheld while the underlying separation-of-powers dispute continued.

This year’s action shifts the test to domestic spending and a broader set of agencies. The practical deadline arrives before the legal one: unless Congress, the courts or the administration intervenes, the contested budget authority could lapse at the close of September 30, turning a disputed request into a completed cancellation.