The worker removes the US Agency for International Development Sign at their headquarters on February 7, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Kayla Bartkowski | Getty Images
On Friday, the federal judge said he would temporarily stop the Trump administration plan to place thousands of workers on the US Agency for International Development on the administrative leave.
About 2,200 USAID employees were to be placed on leave on Friday night at 23:59 ET, as part of the President Donald TrumpEfforts to exclude an independent government agency.
Five hundred USAIDs workers are already on administrative leave, said the lawyer of the US Ministry of Justice in court.
Judge Carl Nichols rendered a verdict after hearing the Trump administration argument and two groups that represented federal workers at the US District Court in Washington, DC
Workers’ groups, the US Association for Foreign Service and the US Federation of Government employees, asked Nichols to order Trump’s administration “to immediately stop actions to close the USAID operations.”
Earlier on Friday, they claimed that the court submission was “USAID to suffer unconstitutional and illegal attacks, leaving their workers, performers, recipients and users abandoned in a wreck and a global humanitarian crisis in Buda.”
Trump’s administration “deliberately dismantled USAID’s infrastructure” and “is ready for almost the final murder,” they wrote.
Nichols said on Friday afternoon that he would enter a “very limited” temporary restraining order before midnight aimed at 2,200 USAIDs.
The judge said that he had not yet decided whether his verdict would abolish Trump’s administration command for 500 employees who had already received it.
During the hearing, Nichols questioned the Lawyer’s Doj -a Brett sample why Trump’s administration should have put 2,200 USAIDs on leave so quickly.
“What is the urgency of this?” asked the judge.
“The president has decided that there is corruption and fraud on USAID,” Shumate replied.
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