A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from placing thousands of US Agency for International Development (USAID) employees on paid leave, effectively pausing efforts to reduce the agency’s workforce to just a few hundred.
On Friday, Washington, DC, US District Judge Carl Nichols issued a temporary restraining order that will block any large-scale personnel changes at USAID until at least Feb. 15. Nichols ordered the Trump administration to reinstate all USAID employees who had been placed on administrative leave, barred any further staff from being put on leave, and ruled that no agency employees stationed abroad should be required to return to the US on an “expected timeline.”
Vacation Over
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Earlier this week, the Trump administration had ordered nearly all USAID personnel based overseas to return, giving them 30 days to accept government-funded travel home unless they were granted an exemption.
Nichols also ordered that all USAID employees be granted full access to email, payment, and security notification systems.
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The judge’s “limited” restraining order, first reported by Politico, was finalized in full late Friday night. Nichols, appointed by Trump, set a preliminary injunction hearing for February 12.
White House officials had reportedly planned to drastically reduce the agency’s workforce, cutting it from over 10,000 employees to just 600, focusing on essential humanitarian and public health work.
Around 500 USAID employees had already been placed on leave, and Nichols noted that they would likely be reinstated following Friday’s hearing.
Federal unions filed a lawsuit against Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and others in the administration on Thursday, challenging the efforts to dismantle and reorganize the agency.
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Lawyers representing the American Foreign Service Association and the American Federation of Government Employees argued that the layoffs could jeopardize both workers stationed overseas and the nongovernmental organizations that depend on USAID funding.
Specifically, the lawyers criticized Elon Musk, head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and now a White House-appointed “special government employee,” for boasting about “feeding USAID into the woodchipper.”
Chaotic Situation
Musk reportedly entered the USAID headquarters over the weekend and improperly accessed classified materials with DOGE engineers, which led to a confrontation with security officials, who were later dismissed.
Brett Shumate, a lawyer from the Justice Department representing the administration, argued that the president had the authority to place employees on leave after having identified “corruption and fraud” within the agency’s programs.
“This is about how employees are harmed in their capacity as employees—in the employee/employer relationship—and it seems to me that, for reasons I will discuss in this order… the plaintiffs have established at least that there is irreparable harm as it relates to that relationship,” Nichols informed both parties at the end of the hearing, according to ABC News.
In his first week in office, Trump ordered a government-wide funding freeze to assess billions of dollars in grants, loans, and other financial support, resulting in the furlough of thousands of USAID contractors.
USAID was created by President John F. Kennedy through an executive order in 1961, and supporters of Trump argue that this provides the president with the authority to cut the agency’s funding and shut it down without needing Congressional approval.
