Judge To Block Trump Administration Plan To Put 2,200 Usaid Workers On Leave

A federal judge will order an immediate halt to key aspects of President Donald Trump’s effort to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, blocking Secretary of State Marco Rubio from placing 2,200 employees of the agency on leave in a matter of hours.

"They should not put those 2,200 people on administrative leave,” U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, told Trump administration attorneys at an emergency hearing Friday. The judge indicated he would formalize his decision later in the evening.

It’s an immediate brushback to the demolition of USAID, the government agency responsible for billions of dollars in international aid programs. Elon Musk spearheaded the bid to dismantle the agency at breakneck speed in recent days, and earlier Friday, Trump called for the agency to be closed down.

Nichols said he is still weighing whether to order the government to recall 500 workers already placed on leave in recent days while a lawsuit brought by USAID employees and their union proceeds.

The decision came hours after lawyers for USAID employees warned of catastrophic consequences of Trump’s assault on the agency. They said employees were summarily cut off from access to government systems, leaving some of them stranded in dangerous international zones without access to safety information. Others were cut off from medical care or recalled to the United States, forcing them to leave spouses and children or uproot them to return to a country where they had no homes or income.

An attorney for the Trump administration — acting Justice Department Civil Division head Brett Shumate — had urged Nichols to refrain from intervening in the matter on an emergency basis, saying the issue amounted to an employment dispute that could be resolved through other grievance processes. He noted that the 2,200 employees being placed on leave would still be paid and could challenge any actions they felt were improper.

Shumate said Rubio, acting at Trump’s direction, has “broad authority over foreign affairs and diplomats and foreign service officers and can order them anywhere in the world he would like them.” And he said the decisions were being made as a result of Trump’s conclusion that the agency was wracked with fraud and corruption. When Nichols pressed him for details about that finding, Shumate said no explanation was necessary.

“When the president exercises his Article II power … he doesn’t have to show cause,” Shumate said, referring to the section of the Constitution that grants powers to the president.

But Nichols said it appeared the employees could face significant harm without court intervention and had made a legitimate case that the actions by the Trump administration exceeded its authority. He insisted his order would be “very limited” and that he would set an expedited schedule to resolve the complicated legal questions as quickly as possible.