The Trump administration is attempting to cut $600 million in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant funding to California, Colorado, Illinois and Minnesota as a result of the presence of sanctuary cities and bold immigrant rights movements in each state. The Trump administration has attempted to save face in the courts by claiming that the funding cuts are due to these grants no longer reflecting agency priorities, but a federal judge has temporarily halted the funding cuts, finding that the terminations are “based on arbitrary, capricious or unconstitutional rationales.”
All four states have officially filed lawsuits challenging the Trump administration’s threats to their HIV programs, and professional associations like the American Academy of HIV Medicine have condemned the administration’s decision. The funding cuts were announced just two weeks after the second general strike against ICE terror in the Twin Cities that expanded across the nation, with thousands taking part in the national day of action in Los Angeles, the Bay Area and Chicago.
Terminating life saving programs
Six hundred million dollars in HIV funding that support life saving programs in California, Colorado, Illinois and Minnesota may soon be terminated. These programs include necessary HIV surveillance to identify individuals living with HIV and the expansion of HIV testing and prevention interventions to prevent further HIV transmission. The funding cuts will also end programs that conduct targeted outreach to Black and Latino gay and bisexual men, programs expanding HIV prevention among Black women, and programs providing gender affirming care to transgender adolescents — three communities that are disproportionately impacted by the HIV epidemic.
From 2010 to 2019, there was an overall decrease in new HIV diagnoses, dropping to just over 36,000 new diagnoses in 2019. In 2020, cases dropped dramatically, but few were able to access HIV testing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since 2020 though, there has been a rise in new diagnoses, rising to just over 39,000 cases in 2025. Part of this rise may be due to individuals who would have been tested during the pandemic just getting access to testing now. However, cuts to funding will greatly exacerbate this number, increasing the risk of tens of thousands of new cases of HIV over the coming years. On top of the Trump administration aiming to cut funding to these four states, 20 states have already reduced their HIV funding, vastly reducing the number of patients served in critical programs.
A recent study in 2025, found that just a 3% decrease in the number of individuals using pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, a daily pill or bimonthly injection to prevent HIV, would result in “over 8,600 additional preventable HIV infections and $3.6 billion in additional medical costs.” A greater decrease of 10% would result in “27,000 additional new infections and over $11.3 billion in lifetime medical costs.” The Trump administration is playing with the lives of thousands of individuals, particularly Black and Latino gay and bisexual men, cisgender women, and transgender individuals.
An attempt to punish anti-Trump politicians
While the Trump administration attempts to provide cover for the purpose of these funding cuts by arguing that the terminated grants no longer align with “agency priorities,” the truth is blatantly obvious. Colorado, Illinois, California and Minnesota each have large immigrant populations. Colorado, Illinois and California are each sanctuary states with sanctuary cities and jurisdictions within them. While Minnesota is not a sanctuary state, the Twin Cities are a sanctuary jurisdiction, preventing cooperation between ICE and the police.
Governors like J.B. Pritzker and Gavin Newsom have made clear their opposition to the Trump administration, including the administration’s war on immigrants. The mayors of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and the Twin Cities have each shown at least public support if not a more explicit willingness to broadly defend immigrants.
These funding cuts come just two weeks after two general strikes in Minnesota defeated the ICE surge in the Twin Cities, resulting in the demotion of Greg Bovino, a “drawdown” of ICE agents, and the acknowledgement by outgoing DHS spokeswoman, Tricia McLaughlin, that, thus far, the right-wing section of the billionaire class has lost in the battle of ideas. The General Strike of Jan. 23 and the Nationwide Day of Action on Jan. 30 have increased the confidence of the working class and have proven that we can win and defeat Trump’s attempt at establishing a far-right political dictatorship.
While federal courts have consistently overturned Trump’s attempts to cut funding from sanctuary jurisdictions due to pressure from the mass movement for immigrant rights, the Trump administration has had greater success in terminating research funding for LGBTQ, Black, Latino and rural health programs.
In 2025, after months of pauses to health research funding, the Supreme Court allowed the National Institutes of Health to keep in place most funding pauses while also allowing the restoration of a segment of previously terminated grants. The NIH responded to the restoration of some grants by publicly stating that these grants, subject to annual review for renewal, would not be renewed in 2026. By targeting HIV funding in Colorado, Minnesota, California and Illinois, the Trump administration is attempting to use a safer mechanism to force these states to cooperate with ICE’s campaign of terror while simultaneously furthering their anti-DEI and anti-LGBTQ initiatives.
The need for multinational, working-class unity
The Trump administration is making it even more clear than ever that we need multinational, working-class unity if we are to defeat the billionaire’s agenda. The administration’s termination of funding meant for Black and Latino gay and bisexual men, Black cisgender women, and transgender adolescents as a means to punish dissent highlights the realities that Trump’s assaults on DEI, LGBTQ individuals, and immigrants are ultimately an attack on the entire working class. While the Attorneys General of Colorado, California, Minnesota and Illinois challenge the Trump administration’s funding cuts in court, what will ultimately win this battle is the pressure of hundreds of thousands of working-class people united around the need to defend our democratic rights and end ICE terror in our communities.
Past movements show that when we are united, we can win. During the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and ‘90s, ACT UP (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), a grassroots organization of LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ people alike, formed to demand the government act to end the epidemic. ACT UP consistently showed that the struggle to demand health care prevention and treatment had to go beyond hospitals and health care clinics.
In the 1980s, ACT UP demonstrated on Wall Street and infiltrated the New York Stock Exchange to target the billionaire class that was allowing thousands of Black, Latino and LGBTQ people to die. In 1991, during the U.S. “Operation Desert Storm” invasion of Iraq, ACT UP organizers interrupted the evening news by entering the CBS news broadcasting station and shouting, “Fight AIDS, not Arabs!” Later, ACT UP organizers protested outside the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Manhattan, joining people across the globe who demanded the end of the detention of HIV-positive Haitian refugees in Guantanamo Bay. Most recently, ACT UP New York City led banner drops for Palestine, demanded a ceasefire in Gaza, endorsed the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions movement, and led protests and die-ins at New York City’s Pride parades, demanding “Fight AIDS! Free Palestine!”
As the Trump administration continues to wage attacks on immigrants across the nation, we cannot rely on politicians or attorneys to save us. As the immigrant rights movement has shown, solo el pueblo salva al pueblo (only the people can save the people). Masses of people across the United States have shown that when working-class people shut it down, ICE and the right wing retreat. Now is the time to build ever greater unity, grow the movement in cities across the country and expand the general strike to defend our existing rights and health care programs and build towards a new society.
Feature photo: Health care workers protest ICE terror. Liberation photo.
