The federal government on Tuesday asked a judge to halt the United States’ first reparations programme that offered Black people in a small Illinois city $25,000 for 20th-century race-based housing discrimination, joining an existing lawsuit that called the programme unconstitutional.

The Justice Department moved to join a federal lawsuit challenging Evanston’s reparations program, arguing the race-based benefits violate the Constitution.

A Chicago-area suburb made headlines for its first-in-the-nation reparations payments. The Justice Department says it’s racially discriminatory