WASHINGTON D.C. — Today, the Center for Victims of Torture (CVT) joined the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition (AVAC) and Journalism Development Network, Inc. (JDN) in a lawsuit seeking relief from the Trump administration’s illegal suspension and termination of the vast majority of foreign assistance awards. The plaintiffs are being represented by Public Citizen Litigation Group.

The Center for Victims of Torture is a Minnesota-based nonprofit that extends life-saving mental health and psychosocial care and support to victims of torture and other gross human rights violations around the world. The abrupt freeze on foreign assistance and subsequent termination of many of CVT’s grants has forced CVT to stop providing clinical and related services overseas to victims of torture and sexual violence, among others.

Clinics that serve refugee survivors of violence and torture in countries including Jordan and Ethiopia have been all but shuttered. The consequences are both tragic and predictable, including increased suicidal ideation among the populations that CVT serves. The abrupt halt in mental health and rehabilitative care not only inflicts unimaginable pain on CVT’s clients, but also harms U.S. interests by increasing the risk of global instability, violence, and extremism.

CVT has been forced by the administration’s actions to furlough 75% of its 575-person staff.

Scott Roehm, director of global policy and advocacy at Center for Victims of Torture, issued the following statement:

“Torture is one of the most heinous abuses that one human being can inflict on another. It leaves deep, sometimes life-threatening, psychological and physical scars. Our job is to help victims heal from those wounds. We do this work with thousands of victims from conflict-affected countries throughout the world, and have seen first-hand that individual healing can have important ripple effects: stabilizing communities and relieving the pressure on overwhelmed national health systems.

“Many of our clients have told us that they might not have survived without our care. Cutting them off from it with no notice or explanation is both senseless and cruel. Shutting our programs down doesn’t advance any legitimate interest, foreign policy or otherwise. It’s causing suffering for the sake of causing suffering, and we’re not going to stand for it.”

“When the Trump administration forced groups like the Center for Victims of Torture to stop work, millions of vulnerable people around the globe abruptly lost access to the programs that they relied on to survive,” added Public Citizen attorney Lauren Bateman, the lead lawyer on the case. “The administration’s actions are illegal. They are also unconscionably cruel. We will continue to fight to restore funding to organizations doing important and life-saving work around the world.”

In March, the D.C. district court granted, in part, a motion for a preliminary injunction in the case and requiring the government to make overdue payments to grantees and to lift stop-work orders. The court held that it was likely unconstitutional for the administration to withhold foreign assistance funding appropriated by Congress, but it declined to order the government to reinstate the large swath of grants that it had terminated.

While the case proceeds, aid organizations, including these plaintiffs, are unable to perform their life-saving work on the grants the government unlawfully terminated.

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