A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from placing 2,200 employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development on paid leave.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, sided with two federal employee associations in agreeing to a pause in plans to put the employees on paid leave as of midnight Friday.
The workers associations argue that President Donald Trump lacks the authority to shut down an agency enshrined in congressional legislation.
Forced leaves pulling all but a small fraction of staffers of the U.S. Agency for International Development off the job around the world began Friday, while employees turned to federal courts to try to roll back the Trump administration's swift dismantling of the six-decade-old aid agency and its programs worldwide.
“CLOSE IT DOWN,” Trump said Friday on social media of USAID.
Before the judge called for a pause, crews used duct tape to block out the agency’s name on a sign outside its Washington headquarters, and a flag was taken down. Someone placed a bouquet of flowers outside the door.
A group of a half-dozen USAID officials speaking to reporters Friday strongly disputed assertions from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that the most essential life-saving programs abroad were getting waivers to continue. With all but several hundred staffers forced out and funding stopped, the agency has “ceased to exist,” one official on the call said.
The Trump administration and billionaire ally Elon Musk, who is running a budget-cutting Department of Government Efficiency, have targeted USAID hardest so far in an unprecedented challenge of the federal government and many of its programs.
The administration told remaining USAID officials on Thursday afternoon that it planned to exempt 297 employees from global leave and furloughs ordered for at least 8,000 staffers and contractors, according to USAID staffers and officials.
Late that night, a new list was finalized of 611 employees to remain on the job, many of them to manage the return home of thousands of staffers, contractors and their families abroad, the officials said. Justice Department lawyer, Brett Shumate, confirmed the 611 figure in court.
The USAID officials and staffers spoke on condition of anonymity due to a Trump administration order barring them from talking publicly.
Some of the remaining staffers and contractors, along with an unknown number of 5,000 locally hired employees abroad, would run the few life-saving programs that the administration says it intends to keep going for now.
It was not immediately clear whether the reductions would be permanent or temporary, potentially allowing more workers to return after what the Trump administration says will be a review of which aid and development programs it wants to resume.
Trump and Musk have spoken of moving surviving programs under the State Department.