Judge halts Trump order to place USAID workers on leave

Ruling temporarily sets back the US President’s efforts to close the international aid agency

People protest outside the USAID building in Washington against the Trump administration's plans to shut down the agency. Reuters

A federal judge in Washington on Friday ordered a temporary block on the Trump administration's move to place thousands of employees of the US Agency for International Development on leave and to give those working abroad a 30-day deadline to return to the US.

US District Judge Carl Nichols, who was nominated by President Donald Trump during his first term, partially granted a request from the largest government workers' union and an association of foreign service workers who sued to stop the administration's efforts to close the agency.

His order, which will be in effect until February 14, blocks a plan to place about 2,200 USAID workers on paid leave from Saturday and reinstates about 500 employees who had already been furloughed. It also bars the Trump administration from relocating the agency's workers stationed outside the United States.

Judge Nichols agreed with arguments by the two employee associations that both orders exposed US aid and development workers abroad to unwarranted risk and hardship, saying they had made a "strong showing of irreparable harm" if the court did not intervene.

But the judge declined a request to grant a temporary block on a funding freeze that has shut down the six-decade-old agency and its work, pending more hearings on the workers' lawsuit.

He is scheduled to consider a request for a longer-term pause at a hearing on Wednesday.

The American Foreign Service Association and the American Federation of Government Employees argue that Mr Trump lacks the authority to shut down USAID without approval from Congress. Democratic lawmakers have made the same argument.

“This is a full-scale gutting of virtually all the personnel of an entire agency,” Karla Gilbride, lawyer for the employee associations, told Judge Nichols.

Justice Department lawyer Brett Shumate argued that the administration has all the legal authority it needs to place agency staffers on leave. “The government does this across the board every day,” Mr Shumate said. “That’s what’s happening here. It’s just a large number.”

"The president has decided there is corruption and fraud at USAID," he said.

Mr Trump, in a post on Truth Social on Friday, accused agency – without evidence – of corruption and spending money fraudulently.

He said the corruption at USAID "Is at levels rarely seen before. Close it down!"

Hours after he was inaugurated on January 20, Mr Trump ordered all US foreign aid be paused to ensure it is aligned with his "America First" policy. Chaos has since consumed USAID, which distributes billions of dollars of humanitarian aid around the world.

The State Department issued worldwide stop-work directives after the executive order was issued, effectively freezing all foreign aid with the exception of emergency food assistance. That brought USAID programmes covering life-saving aid across the globe to a grinding halt, in a move that experts warned risked killing people.

The gutting of the agency has largely been overseen by businessman Elon Musk, the world's richest man and a close Trump ally spearheading the president's effort to shrink the federal bureaucracy.

In the 2023 fiscal year, the United States disbursed, partly via USAID, $72 billion of aid worldwide on everything from women's health in conflict zones to access to clean water, HIV/Aids treatments, energy security and anti-corruption work.

It provided 42 per cent of all humanitarian aid tracked by the United Nations in 2024.

With reporting from agencies.