President Donald Trump’s administration is moving to cut more than $100 million in federal health care grants for Illinois, a step that was quickly met with a lawsuit filed by Attorney General Kwame Raoul and his peers in three other states.

Illinois, California, Colorado and Minnesota sued the Trump administration Wednesday over the Office of Management and Budget’s directive to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to cut more than $600 million in grants to those states. The grants, which could be terminated as soon as Thursday, are for states to track disease outbreaks, maintain and improve their data systems and collect public health data, according to the lawsuit.

“Rather than making life easier and more affordable for our families, Donald Trump is stripping critical public health funding with the singular goal of harming states he does not like,” Gov. JB Pritzker said in a news release. “It’s a slap in the face to the people of Illinois and the public health leaders who have stepped up as his (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) takes a sledgehammer to public health infrastructure. Illinois will not stand by idly as Trump illegally cancels the Congressionally-allocated funding we are owed.”

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday evening, but a spokesperson said earlier this week in a statement, “These grants are being terminated because they do not reflect agency priorities.”

In Illinois, the grant dollars targeted for cuts include more than $86 million slated to go to the Illinois Department of Public Health for public health efforts and prevention of HIV and sexually transmitted diseases, and more than $61 million for the Chicago Department of Public Health for similar work, according to information obtained by the Tribune.

The largest grant at risk is the Public Health Infrastructure Block Grant, which in Illinois funds lead poisoning prevention grants to 25 local health departments and grants that support 674 public health jobs at 96 local agencies, according to the lawsuit. If Illinois were to lose that money, it would have to terminate 99 Illinois Department of Public Health employees, harming the state health department’s ability to “perform core public health functions” including disease surveillance, data analysis, workforce management and regulatory compliance, according to the lawsuit.

Grant money for other nongovernmental organizations in Illinois is also at risk. The list of grants to be canceled includes $5.2 million for Lurie Children’s Hospital for HIV prevention, according to information reviewed by the Tribune. It also includes $7.2 million that was supposed to go to the Chicago-based American Medical Association to increase screenings for infectious diseases, improve blood pressure control, help physicians navigate brain health and dementia care, and improve care for people living with pain.

A spokesperson for the Chicago Department of Public Health said of the reported cuts: “This is an evolving situation. We are actively working to identify the specific grants that could impact CDPH, and our priority is to ensure we minimize any potential impact on Chicagoans.”

Lurie said in a statement Tuesday: “We are evaluating the circumstances that have been reported by the media regarding this research grant. We conduct all of our research to improve the lives of children, adolescents and families.”

Other cited potential cuts include $1.4 million in grants for the Itasca-based American Academy of Pediatrics for provider education and school-based mental health; $600,000 for the Puerto Rican Cultural Center for HIV Prevention; $400,000 for the South Side Help Center for HIV prevention; and $523,000 for the University of Chicago for violence prevention.

The grants listed for cancellation were multiyear grants, and the figures do not include money that has already been distributed as part of those grants. A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately answer a question Wednesday afternoon about whether money that has already been given out could be clawed back or if the cuts would only affect grant money moving forward.

Many of the grants are related to HIV prevention. John Peller, president and CEO of the AIDS Foundation Chicago, said now is “exactly the wrong time to cut HIV funding and programs in Illinois,” noting that there were nearly 13% more new HIV cases in Chicago in 2024 than 2023.

Peller worries that fewer resources may mean fewer people getting tested and fewer learning about PrEP, medication that is taken before potential exposure to HIV that can reduce a person’s chances of catching it if they’re exposed.

“The lifetime cost of treatment for someone living with HIV is over $420,000, so we think HIV prevention programs are a bargain and a prudent public health investment,” Peller said. “It just doesn’t make sense to cut HIV funding.”

Illinois and the three other states affected by the cuts allege in their lawsuit that the Office of Management and Budget’s directive to government agencies to terminate the grants violates the U.S. Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act because they are arbitrary and capricious and the move exceeds the agencies’ statutory authority.

Over the past year, the federal government has worked to slash a number of health care-related grants to Illinois.

Last month, the Trump administration said it was terminating nearly $6 million of behavioral health and suicide prevention grants for the state of Illinois, along with millions more in grants that go to Illinois nonprofits to support mental health and substance use disorder services — news that sparked outrage and confusion among providers. The federal government, however, quickly backtracked, saying it would no longer cancel the grants.

That same month, the Department of Health and Human Services said that it would freeze about $10 billion in funding for child care and family assistance programs in Illinois, California, Colorado, Minnesota and New York over concerns that the benefits “may have been improperly provided to individuals who are not eligible under federal law.”

Illinois and the other states sued the federal government, and a federal judge last week issued a preliminary injunction in the case preventing the assistance funds from being frozen while the case proceeds.

In March, the federal government said it would pull back $125 million in funding from the Illinois Department of Public Health and 97 local health departments for activities related to COVID-19 and other infectious diseases. Illinois and other states sued over the cuts, and a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction in mid-May prohibiting the federal government from cutting the money from those states, including Illinois, while the case proceeds.

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