Judge Temporarily Blocking Trump Admin from placing USAIn workers on leave

Washington (AP) – A Federal Judge dealt with Friday President Donald Trump and Billionaire Alley Elon Musk their first major setback in their dismantling of US Agency for International Development, Ordering a temporary stop to plans to pull thousands of agency staff out of the job.

US district judge Carl Nichols, a Trump -appointed, also accepted to block an order that would have given the thousands of overseas USAD workers who the administration wanted to place on sudden administrative leave just 30 days to move families and households back to US on government spending.

Both traits would have exposed the American workers and their spouses and children to unjustified risk and expenses, the judge said.

Nichols pointed to accounts from workers abroad that Trump administration in its haste with closing the agency and its programs abroad had cut off some workers from government E emails and other communication systems they needed to reach the US government in case of a health or security of emergency.

Associated Press reported earlier that USAID consenters in the Middle East and other places had even found “Panic Button” apps wiped their cell phones or disabled when the administration suddenly shot them.

“Administrative leave in Syria is not the same as administrative leave in Bethesda,” the judge said in his order on Friday night.

By accepting to stop the 30-day deadline given USID employees to return to government expenditure, Nichol’s declarations quoted from agency employees who had no home to go to the United States after decades abroad who were facing that Pulling children with special needs out of school mid -year, and had other difficulties.

The judge also ordered USAID employees already placed on leave by the Trump administration reintroduced. But he rejected a request from two federal staff associations to give a temporary block on a Trump administration funding freezing that has closed the six-year-old agency and its work pending several hearings on the Workers’ Laws.

Nichols emphasized during the hearing earlier Friday on request to pause Trump administration’s actions that his order was not a decision on the employees’ request to roll back the administration’s rapid moving destruction of the agency.

“Close it,” Trump said on social media of USAID before the referee’s decision.

The American Foreign Service Association and the American Federation of Government -Employees claim that Trump lacks authority to close the agency without the approval of Congress. Democratic legislators have made the same argument.

Trump’s administration quickly moved Friday to literally delete the agency’s name. Workers on a crane scrubbet the name from the stone front at his Washington headquarters. They used duct tape to block it on a sign and took down USAD flags. Someone placed a bouquet of flowers outside the door.

Trump -Administration and MuskThere is a budget cutting department for government efficiency, has made USAID their biggest goal so far in an unprecedented challenge from the federal government and many of its programs.

Administrative -appointed and Musk’s teams have closed almost all funding to the agency, stopped help and development programs around the world. They have placed employees and contractors on leave and Furlough and locked them out of the Agency’s E -mail and other systems. According to democratic legislators, they also drove away from USAI’s computer servers.

“This is a full scale of virtually all staff at an entire agency,” Karla Gilbride, the lawyer of the staff association, told the judge.

The Ministry of Justice’s lawyer Brett Shumate claimed that the administration has all the legal authority it needs to place the agency’s employees on leave. “The government does this everywhere every day,” Shumate said. “That’s what happens here. It’s just a large number. “

Friday’s decision is the latest setback in the courts of Trump administration if policies to Offer financial incentives for federal workers to resign and end Birthright with citizenship For anyone born in the United States to someone in the country illegally, paused is temporarily put by judges.

Earlier Friday, a group of half a dozen USAID officials who spoke with journalists contested strong allegations from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that the most important life-saving programs abroad prompted exceptions to continue financing. No one was, the officials said.

Among the programs they said had not received exceptions: $ 450 million in food grown by US farmers sufficient to feed 36 million people who were not paid for or delivered; And water supplies to 1.6 million people displaced by war in Sudan’s Darfur region, which was cut off without money for fuel to run water pumps in the desert.

The referee’s order involved the Trump Administration’s decision earlier this week to withdraw almost all USAID workers from the job and out of the field around the world.

Trump and Congress Republicans have talked about moving a very reduced number of help and development programs under the Ministry of State.

Within the Ministry of State itself, employees fear significant staff reductions after the deadline for the Trump administration’s offer of financial incentives for federal workers to resign, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity of fear of retaliation. A judge temporarily blocked this offer and put a hearing on Monday.

Earlier this week, the administration gave almost all USAID employees who were released over abroad 30 days that started Friday to return to the United States, where the government paid for their travel and relocation costs. Diplomats at embassies asked for exceptions that allow more time for some, including families who were forced to pull their children out of schools in the middle of the year.

In a statement sent on the USAID site late Thursday, the agency clarified that none of the overseas staff put on leave would be forced to leave the country where they work. But it said workers who chose to stay longer than 30 days may have to cover their own expenses unless they received a specific hardship from difficulties.

Said Rubio Thursday during A trip to the Dominican Republic That the government would help employees come home within 30 days “if they wished” and would listen to those with special conditions.

He insisted that the movements were the only way to get cooperation because employees worked “to sneak through payments and push through payments despite the stop order” on foreign aid. Agency’s employees deny his claims of obstacle.

Rubio said the US government will continue to provide foreign aid, “but it will be foreign assistance that makes sense and is in line with our national interest.”

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AP Journalists Matthew Lee, Farnoush Amiri and Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington contributed to this report.