Attorney General Ellison wins settlement blocking Trump Administration from dismantling AmeriCorps without warning

Resolves April 2025 multistate lawsuit in response to repeated attempts to gut nation’s volunteer-service programs

AG Ellison and coalition had previously won restoration of $184M in cuts

September 11, 2026 (SAINT PAUL) — Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, as part of a coalition of 23 attorneys general and two governors, has reached a settlement that stops the Trump administration from dismantling AmeriCorps again without warning. The deal resolves the April 2025 lawsuit, amended in July 2025, that Attorney General Ellison and the coalition brought in response to the administration’s repeated attempts to gut the nation’s volunteer service programs. As a result of the lawsuit, the Trump administration was previously forced to reinstate nearly $400 million in terminated AmeriCorps programs and agreed to release over $184 million in funds to service programs in Minnesota and across the country. The cuts the lawsuit prevented had threatened the survival of those programs. This settlement protects the funding and participants of those programs for Fiscal Year 2026 as well.

“AmeriCorps reflects the Minnesota values of giving back to your community, stepping up to help others who are struggling, and improving people’s lives,” Attorney General Ellison said. “Last year, I stood up alongside half the states of our country to defend these values, and now we’ve won our fight to keep the Trump Administration from arbitrarily and cruelly dismantling this essential program. I will keep fighting Trump’s attempts to attack Minnesota values and will keep standing up for the rule of law and the best of who we are.”

AmeriCorps supports national and state community service programs by funding and placing volunteers in local and national organizations that address critical community needs. Organizations in Minnesota and across the country rely on support from AmeriCorps to recruit, place, and supervise AmeriCorps members nationwide.

Under the terms of the settlement, AmeriCorps states that it does not anticipate that, during Fiscal Year 2026, it will terminate grants en masse as it did in Spring 2025, conduct reductions in force of union employees beyond certain previously planned cuts, or dismiss AmeriCorps service members en masse. Should AmeriCorps take any of those actions, or make a material change to its delivery of volunteer services, it must provide the coalition states with written notice at least 30 days in advance and identify the legal authority under which it is taking the action.

AmeriCorps has also agreed to commit substantially all of its Fiscal Year 2026 funding by September 30, 2026, and to administer its National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC) and AmeriCorps VISTA programs in accordance with the federal statutes that govern them. Under the settlement, AmeriCorps may not disrupt the current terms of service of NCCC or VISTA participants, except under specific, lawful circumstances detailed in the settlement.

The settlement pauses the litigation through February 1, 2027, at which point the coalition will voluntarily dismiss the case without prejudice, provided AmeriCorps has complied with its commitments. Should the coalition determine that AmeriCorps has not complied, it may move the court to lift the stay and resume litigation. The coalition also retains the right to challenge other unlawful conduct by AmeriCorps, whether through an amended complaint during the stay or a new action during or after the stay.

The coalition initiated the litigation in April 2025, after the Trump administration moved to eliminate nearly 90 percent of AmeriCorps’ workforce, cancel its contracts, and close $400 million worth of AmeriCorps-supported programs. In June 2025, a federal court granted the coalition’s motion for a preliminary injunction requiring the administration to reinstate programs that had been unlawfully canceled. Then in August 2025, following a further motion for preliminary injunction by the coalition, the federal Office of Management and Budget agreed to release more than $184 million in AmeriCorps funding it had withheld.

Joining Attorney General Ellison in the settlement are the attorneys general of Maryland, California, Colorado, and Delaware, who co-led the coalition, and the attorneys general of Arizona, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Hawaiʻi, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin, and the governors of Kentucky and Pennsylvania.