Washington — A federal judge on Friday prevented the Trump administration from placing 2,200 employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, on administrative leave, siding with unions representing the employees for now.
Judge Carl Nichols of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who President Trump named to the bench in 2019, said in a limited temporary restraining order issued late Friday night that was blocking the employees from being put on administrative leave, a move that was set to take effect at midnight.
In the order, he also reinstated another 500 USAID workers who had already been placed on leave and paused White House orders requiring USAID personnel stationed abroad to return to the U.S. immediately.
Nichols said his temporary restraining order blocking both the administrative leaves and the expedited evacuations would remain in place until Feb. 14 at midnight.
“All USAID employees currently on administrative leave shall be reinstated until that date, and shall be given complete access to email, payment, and security notification systems until that date, and no additional employees shall be placed on administrative leave before that date,” Nichols wrote.
A hearing on the case was scheduled for Feb. 12.
In a court hearing Friday afternoon, Nichols said the unions — American Foreign Service Association and American Federation of Government Employees — established they would suffer “irreparable harm” without a pause, while the government did not.
“Frankly, there is zero harm to the government” in a short-term pause, Nichols said from the bench.
At the hearing, the plaintiffs asked the court to immediately pause evacuation orders given to USAID personnel in international postings, and for access to be restored to computers systems for people who are in the field across all parts of USAID and its contractors.
The government acknowledged that 2,200 USAID employees were set to be put on leave at midnight barring court action, not including the other 500 people who are already on leave prior to today. Six hundred and eleven essential personnel would stay on at USAID, and the government added that it has no plans to lower that number.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that the major reduction in force, evacuations and uprooting people from their jobs and homes were violations of the separation of powers and congressional appropriations. They said families are being separated, and children of USAID employees are being pulled out of schools across the world. Staffers have been cut off from access to health care, and many have to go back to states without housing or source of income, according to the unions.
“This is the full-scale gutting of virtually all of the personnel at an agency,” a lawyer for USAID employees said, adding it is “carnage” on ground for the USAID workforce and contractors.
Nichols pressed the government’s attorneys for a reason why Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is the acting head of USAID, needs to place the employees on leave Friday night. “I don’t believe Secretary Rubio needs to provide one,” one of the lawyers responded.
Nichols pushed the government lawyers to detail what “findings” they have that there is corruption and fraud in the agency, as is alleged by President Trump and his allies. The attorneys had no response. The judge also took issue with the government’s framing of Rubio being able to control USAID in his role as secretary of state, not as acting administrator, given that it is a separate agency.
Nichols decision to block the move to place the employees on leave came hours after workers were seen removing the signage at the USAID headquarters in downtown Washington.
