Judge blocks Trump -Administration in placing 2,200 USAID -Employees on leave

Washington – A federal judge prevented Friday Trump’s administration from placing 2,200 employees in US Agency for International Development or USAIDfurther Administrative leaveSide tracks with unions representing the employees for now.

Judge Carl Nichols of the US District Court of District of Columbia, which President Trump appointed to the bench in 2019, said in one Limited temporary restriction order Issued late Friday night, which blocked employees being put on administrative leave, a step to take effect at midnight.

In the order, he also reintroduced another 500 USAID workers who had already been placed on leave and paused in the White House, demanding that USAID station stations abroad to return to the United States immediately.

Nichols said his temporary restriction order, which blocked both the administrative magazines and the accelerated evacuations, would remain in place until February 14 at midnight.

“All USAID employees currently in administrative leave must be reintroduced until this date and must have full access to E email, payment and security message systems until this date, and no additional employees must be placed in administrative leave before that date,” Nichols wrote.

A hearing on the case was scheduled for February 12.

At a hearing on Friday afternoon, Nichols said the unions – American Foreign Service Association and the American Federation of Government – established that they would suffer “irreparable harm” without a break while the government did not.

“Honestly, there is zero damage to the government” during a short break, Nichols said from the bench.

During the hearing, the plaintiffs asked the right to immediately set evacuation orders to be given to USAID staff in international postings, and to have access to recover 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 should be put on leave at midnight from preventing litigation, not including the other 500 people already on leave before today. Six hundred and eleven essential staff would remain in USAID, and the government added that it has no plans to lower this number.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs claimed that the greatest reduction in power, evacuations and roll -out of people from their jobs and homes was a violation of the separation of powers and congressional appropriations. They said that families are being separated and that children of USAID staff are being pulled out of schools around the world. Employees have been cut off from access to health care, and many have to return to states without housing or source of income, according to the unions.

“This is the full-scale slip of virtually all staff on an agency,” said a lawyer for USAID employees, adding that it is a “carnage” on the ground for the USAID workforce and contractors.

Nichols pressed the government’s lawyers for a reason why State Secretary Marco Rubio, who is the acting manager of USAID, has to place employees on leave on Friday night. “I don’t think secretary Rubio needs one,” replied one of the lawyers.

Nichols pushed the government attorneys to detail what “finds” they have, that there is corruption and fraud in the agency, as claimed by President Trump and his allies. The lawyers had no answer. The judge also questioned the government’s framing of Rubio, who could control USAID in his role as Secretary of State, not as acting administrator, considering that it is a separate agency.

Nichol’s decision to block the move to place employees on leave came hours after the work was seen removing the signage in USAID headquarters in the center of Washington.