A US judge temporarily halted President Donald Trump’s order to freeze hundreds of billions of dollars in federal grants and loans, minutes before it was set to come into effect on Tuesday.

Judge Loren AliKhan’s order to pause the plan until next Monday at 17:00 EST (22:00 GMT) came in response to a lawsuit filed earlier in the day by a group of organisations representing grant recipients.

The lawsuit claims the White House’s temporary freezing of already approved funding violates the law.In the hours before the order was due to take effect, there was widespread confusion about which agencies and programmes would be impacted.The acting head of the White House budget office had instructed agencies to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligations or disbursement of all federal financial assistance”.It said the move was intended to give the new administration time to assess what grants and loans were in step with their agenda.

On Tuesday, several states reported issues accessing funds through Medicaid, a government health insurance programme for low-income people. The White House later said the programme would not be affected and that the problem would be resolved soon.It also said Social Security benefits would not be affected, nor would any programme “that provides direct benefits to individuals”, including Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP or food stamps.