A federal judge in Washington said Friday he would temporarily order the federal government not to place thousands of U.S. Agency for International Development employees on administrative leave and to stop forcing them to relocate to the United States.
Judge Carl Nichols of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia announced that intended ruling at the conclusion of a hearing in a lawsuit brought by federal foreign service officers’ union and federal government workers’ union.
The unions had argued for an order that would have had the government further unwind the Trump administration’s attempt to shutter the agency. The lawsuit is the most prominent legal challenge to the effort.
Nichols, who was appointed in Trump’s first term, said he would enter the order Friday night, before the agency put 2,200 employees on administrative leave. He cautioned that it would be “limited, very limited” to the harms the employees may face from being suddenly cut off from federal support in foreign countries.
Attorneys for the unions, from Public Citizen Litigation Group and Democracy Forward Foundation, argued that putting more than 2,000 workers on administrative leave and mandating they return to the United States much more quickly than normal violated federal law and could put them in danger.
Karla Gilbride, arguing on behalf of the worker unions, said the workers did not have access to government computer systems, which included safety information about the sometimes dangerous places they worked.
Gilbride pointed out that the freeze of funds also put USAID contracting officers on the hook, as they bore legal liability for the payment of funds that the government had frozen. Gilbride argued that the government had not justified the “severe harm and humanitarian carnage” that shuttering USAID had caused.
The Justice Department, represented by Brett Shumate, argued that the case was essentially complaints by frustrated employees trying to “superintend” the government’s decisions, including those from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was named acting head of USAID.
“There is no basis for a broad injunctive order to prevent the president and secretary administrator Rubio from controlling the executive branch and USAID,” Shumate said.
Federal employee complaints are normally handled by the Merit Service Protection Board or other avenues, not the federal courts, Shumate said.
“The only difference between this case and every other employment case is the number of people involved,” Shumate said.
The lawsuit, brought by the American Foreign Service Association and American Federation of Government Employees, argued that Trump’s effort to shut down the agency disrupted their lives and violated the Constitution and federal administrative law.
The complaint filed Thursday said Trump’s “unconstitutional and illegal actions,” which included freezing federal aid programs, stopping all foreign aid work and placing thousands of employees on leave, created a “global humanitarian crisis.”
“Not a single one of defendants’ actions to dismantle USAID were taken pursuant to congressional authorization,” the complaint said. “And pursuant to federal statute, Congress is the only entity that may lawfully dismantle the agency.”
The lawsuit also included multiple affidavits from USAID employees, including a pregnant official who said that shuttering the agency had disrupted medical care, and workers who said they were cut off from the agency’s safety warning system.
As of Friday, the USAID website had been replaced with a notice to employees placing them on administrative leave except for those who worked on “mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs.”
Earlier on Friday, Trump criticized USAID in a social media post. He claimed without evidence that federal funds were spent “FRAUDULENTLY” and that the agency had “CORRUPTION” at “LEVELS RARELY SEEN BEFORE.”
“CLOSE IT DOWN!” Trump posted.
Over the weekend, without evidence, billionaire Trump ally and head of the Department of Government Efficiency Elon Musk called USAID a “criminal organization” on his social media platform.
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