A U.S. judge has blocked the Trump administration’s plan to place roughly 2,700 U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) employees on leave.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols in Washington, a Trump appointee, granted a partial request from the largest U.S. government workers’ union and an association of foreign service workers who had sued to prevent the dismantling of USAID.
The ruling, in effect until February 14, allows the affected USAID employees to return to work and bars the administration from relocating USAID humanitarian workers stationed abroad.
Nichols will consider a request for a longer-term pause at a hearing scheduled for Wednesday, having written in his order that the unions had made a “strong showing of irreparable harm” if the court did not intervene.
The order specifically blocks the administration from placing about 2,200 USAID workers on paid leave beginning Saturday and reinstates some 500 employees who had already been furloughed.
Will USAID buildings reopen and will funding for grants and contracts be restored? While Judge Nichols blocked the administration’s plan to furlough thousands of USAID employees, he denied the unions’ requests to reopen USAID facilities and reinstate funding for grants and contracts.
In a Thursday notice to USAID employees, the administration announced that it would retain 611 essential staff members out of the agency’s more than 10,000 employees worldwide.
