Judge to pause Trump administration effort to gut USAID’s workforce by thousands

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.

Nichols said he would be entering a “very limited” temporary restraining order before midnight, “that will be directed at the placement of the 2,200 or 2,700 employees on administrative leave, and then the accelerated removal of people from their countries.”

A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the forthcoming order.

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 starting at 11:59 p.m. Friday 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.

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.