A federal judge on Friday said he will pause a midnight deadline for the U.S. Agency for International Development to be stripped down to a few hundred workers from a workforce of more than 5,000.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols made the announcement from the bench after a hearing at a federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., hours before 2,200 USAID employees were scheduled to be placed on administrative leave beginning at 11:59 p.m. ET Friday.
“There is essentially no harm to the government” to pausing its staffing plans, Nichols said when announcing his decision.
Nichols, a Trump appointee, said he would be entering a “very limited” temporary restraining order before midnight that would also address whether 500 employees already on leave will have their leave rescinded.
A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the judge’s forthcoming order.
Follow live politics coverage here.
The American Foreign Service Association, a union representing 1,800 foreign service officers working for USAID, and the American Federation of Government Employees sued the Trump administration Thursday after the administration said earlier this week that thousands of USAID employees would be placed on administrative leave as part of a broad maneuver by President Donald Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to start reshaping the federal government. USAID personnel abroad were given 30 days to return to the United States.
The groups had asked the court to issue a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction directing the administration to halt the shutdown, alleging that efforts to dissolve the foreign assistance agency “have generated a global humanitarian crisis by abruptly halting the crucial work of USAID employees, grantees, and contractors.”
The lawsuit alleges that Trump’s efforts “exceed presidential authority and usurp legislative authority conferred upon Congress by the Constitution,” violating the separation of powers.
“Not a single one of defendants’ actions to dismantle USAID were taken pursuant to congressional authorization. And pursuant to federal statute, Congress is the only entity that may lawfully dismantle the agency,” the lawsuit says.
Lauren Bateman, an attorney with Public Citizen Litigation Group, which is representing the labor groups in the lawsuit, said in a statement that the judge’s forthcoming order is “a step forward in our fight against the unconstitutional and illegal attempt to break the back of USAID.”
During the hearing, acting Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate, who argued the case on behalf of the Justice Department, had a hard time convincing Nichols there was a need for the midnight deadline.
“What is the urgency of this?” Nichols asked.
“The president has decided there is corruption and fraud at USAID,” Shumate replied.
Trump reiterated his push for the agency’s abolishment in a post on Truth Social ahead of Friday’s hearing, writing in all caps: “The way in which the money has been spent, so much of it fraudulently, is totally unexplainable. The corruption is at levels rarely seen before. Close it down!”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has defended the planned staffing cuts at the agency, saying Thursday that the administration was “not trying to be disruptive to people’s personal lives,” but that the directive was “the only way we’ve been able to get cooperation from USAID.”
In addition to previously promoting false conspiracy theories about USAID, Musk this week referred to the agency as “a criminal organization” in a post on X that added, “Time for it to die.”
When USAID’s director of security John Voorhees and his deputy, Brian McGill, sought to block efforts by DOGE to access secure systems at the agency, the Trump administration responded by putting them on administrative leave.
