Judge temporarily blocks Trump administration from placing 2,200 USAID workers on leave

WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from placing 2,200 employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development on paid leave.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, who was appointed by President Trump, sided with two federal employee associations in agreeing to a pause in plans to put the employees on paid leave as of midnight Friday.

The workers associations argue that Trump lacks the authority for his swift dismantling of a six-decade-old aid agency enshrined in congressional legislation.

“CLOSE IT DOWN,” Trump said Friday on social media of USAID.

Crews used duct tape to block out the agency’s name on a sign outside its Washington headquarters Friday, and a flag was taken down. Someone placed a bouquet of flowers outside the door.

A group of a half-dozen USAID officials speaking to reporters Friday strongly disputed assertions from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that the most essential life-saving programs abroad were getting waivers to continue. With all but several hundred staffers forced out and funding stopped, the agency has “ceased to exist,” one official said.

The Trump administration and billionaire ally Elon Musk, who is running the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, have targeted USAID hardest so far in an unprecedented effort to trim the federal government and many of its programs.

The American flag flying alone beside an empty flagpole that previously had the flag of the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, are pictured in the reflection of a window that previously had the sign and the seal of USAID, outside the agency’s headquarters in Washington, Friday, Feb. 7, 2025.

(Jose Luis Magana / Associated Press)

The administration told remaining USAID officials on Thursday afternoon that it planned to exempt 297 employees from global leave and furloughs ordered for at least 8,000 staffers and contractors, according to USAID officials.

Late that night, a new list was finalized of 611 employees to remain on the job, many of them to manage the return home of thousands of staffers, contractors and their families abroad, the officials said. A Justice Department lawyer, Brett Shumate, confirmed the 611 figure in court.

The USAID officials and staffers spoke on condition of anonymity because a Trump administration order barred them from talking publicly.

Some of the remaining staffers and contractors, along with an unknown number of locally hired employees abroad, would run the few life-saving programs that the administration says it intends to keep going for now.

It was not immediately clear whether the reductions would be permanent or temporary, potentially allowing more workers to return after what the Trump administration says will be a review of which aid and development programs it wants to resume.

Trump and Musk have spoken of moving surviving programs under the State Department.

U.S.-provided humanitarian aid destined for Venezuela is displayed at a warehouse in Cucuta, Colombia, on Feb. 19, 2019.

(Fernando Vergara / Associated Press)

Within the State Department, employees fear substantial staff reductions following the deadline for a Trump administration offer of financial incentives for federal workers to resign, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. A judge temporarily blocked that offer and set a hearing Monday.

At USAID, officials said a program that buys $450 million in food grown by U.S. farmers — enough to feed 36 million people — had been halted. They also said water supplies for 1.6 million people displaced by war in Sudan’s Darfur region were being cut off because funding had been halted for fuel to run water pumps in the desert.

The administration earlier this week gave almost all USAID staffers posted overseas 30 days, starting Friday, to return to the U.S., with the government paying for their travel and moving costs. Diplomats at embassies asked for waivers allowing more time for some, including families forced to pull their children out of schools midyear.

In a notice posted on the USAID website late Thursday, the agency clarified that none of the overseas personnel put on leave would be forced to leave the country where they work. But it said that workers who chose to stay longer than 30 days might have to then cover their own moving expenses unless they received a specific hardship waiver.

Rubio said Thursday during a trip to the Dominican Republic that the government would help staffers get home within 30 days “if they so desired” and would listen to those with special conditions.

He insisted the moves were the only way to get cooperation because staffers were working “to sneak through payments and push through payments despite the stop order” on foreign assistance. Agency staffers deny his claims of obstruction.

Rubio said the U.S. government will continue providing foreign aid, “but it is going to be foreign aid that makes sense and is aligned with our national interest.”

Democratic lawmakers and others contend the move is illegal without congressional approval.

The same argument was made by the American Foreign Service Assn. and the American Federation of Government Employees in their lawsuit filed late Thursday. It asks the federal court in Washington to compel the reopening of USAID’s buildings, return its staffers to work and restore funding.

Government officials “failed to acknowledge the catastrophic consequences of their actions, both as they pertain to American workers, the lives of millions around the world, and to U.S. national interests,” the suit says.