Judge says he will freeze elements of Trump plan to shut down USAID

WASHINGTON — A federal judge said Friday that he would order the Trump administration to halt for now some elements of its attempt to shut down the United States Agency for International Development.

Judge Carl Nichols of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, a 2019 Trump appointee, said that he would issue a temporary restraining order pausing the imminent administrative leave of 2,200 USAID employees and a plan to withdraw nearly all of the agency’s overseas workers within 30 days.

He was ruling on a lawsuit filed on behalf of the largest union representing federal workers and the union that represents Foreign Service officers. Nichols said the unions had established that the employees affected by the leave and withdrawal orders would suffer “irreparable harm.”

Nichols said the ordered pause would be brief and allow for further, “expedited” arguments to determine the legality of the administration’s actions, but did not immediately schedule another hearing. He added that he was still considering whether to order the reinstatement of 500 agency employees on administrative leave.

His order was the latest action by a court to slow or limit President Donald Trump’s agenda, following rulings that blocked for now Trump’s moves to freeze federal spending and overturn birthright citizenship. The cases are part of a sprawling legal battle over Trump’s efforts to expand presidential authority in ways that Democrats and many legal experts call unconstitutional.

Democrats also fear that Trump’s sudden moves to gut USAID — which have instilled a sense of chaos and panic within the agency — may serve as a test case for dramatically cutting or shutting down other federal departments and agencies.

The unions had asked the court to block Trump’s dismantlement of the aid agency, calling it “unconstitutional and illegal” and saying it had “generated a global humanitarian crisis” and threatened American strategic interests.

They also pointed to the toll on the thousands of USAID workers who have been blindsided by unsubstantiated charges of corruption and even criminality from Trump and his allies.

Those accusations have shocked and bewildered workers at an agency that distributes tens of billions of taxpayer dollars per year on humanitarian, medical, development and pro-democracy aid, mainly to countries in desperate need, in what supporters consider some of the U.S. government’s most noble work.

“They are confused and frightened,” the lawsuit said, adding that some workers had made major life choices “such as geographic location and family planning” on the assumption that the federal government would follow the law.

“Not a single one of defendants’ actions to dismantle USAID were taken pursuant to congressional authorization,” the lawsuit said. “And pursuant to federal statute, Congress is the only entity that may lawfully dismantle the agency.”

The lawsuit was filed Thursday by Democracy Forward and Public Citizen Litigation Group on behalf of the American Foreign Service Association and the American Federation of Government Employees. It notes the central role Elon Musk played in the agency’s gutting. Musk, a Trump ally and donor, recently boasted online of “feeding USAID into the wood chipper.”

In a statement, the American Federation of Government Employees said it was “pleased” by the ruling, adding: “We continue to believe this program violates the law, and we will continue to aggressively defend our members’ rights.”

Current and former USAID officials expressed elation over the ruling, even if it means the agency’s workers — including those already placed on administrative leave — still face confusion and uncertainty about their fate until Nichols eventually issues a more definitive ruling.

One former senior official also noted that the pause has no effect on Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order freezing nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending, which halted most of the agency’s work. (The administration has issued waivers authorizing some specific programs deemed vital or lifesaving.)

Democrats in Congress were quick to cheer their limited victory, with some focusing on the role of Musk, an unelected billionaire.

“I welcome a judicial order to halt the Musk administration’s abuse of USAID’s workforce even temporarily,” Rep. Donald S. Beyer Jr., D-Va., said in a statement. “The court should uphold the law and put a full and permanent stop to the illegal, unconstitutional, immoral and corrupt destruction of USAID.”

Over the past several days Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whom Trump named as acting USAID administrator Monday, has made the administration’s case that the aid agency’s work needs to be “realigned” with America’s national interest. Rubio contends that USAID has resisted direction from the State Department and congressional oversight.

Rubio has also asserted, without providing evidence, that some agency workers defied Trump’s order to freeze all foreign aid. Rubio has also accused USAID officials of fighting efforts by Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency to scrutinize their work, forcing the administration to move “faster” against the agency than planned.

The agency’s defenders say that Trump officials have cherry-picked a small number of expenses and wildly distorted their significance, exploiting deep voter skepticism toward foreign aid — “the least popular thing government spends money on,” as Rubio put it Wednesday.

Not only will the swift agency shutdown have a direct cost in lives, they argue, ending its programs will also benefit American rivals like Russia and China in the global competition for influence. And it will comes as a gift, they say, to authoritarian leaders, such as Hungary’s Viktor Orban, who have long railed at the agency’s spending on civil society and other pro-democracy programs. Some of those authoritarian leaders, including Orban, are allies of Trump.

The plaintiff’s lead lawyer on Friday was Karla Gilbride, who was fired last month as the general counsel of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Gilbride, who is blind, was led to her seat by a fellow plaintiff’s lawyer.

The Justice Department did not file a brief in the case, and during Friday’s hearing, which lasted around 90 minutes, Nichols noted repeatedly that the Trump administration had not provided much information from which he could draw.

Justice Department lawyers argued during the hearing that, even though the government was trying to put thousands of workers on administrative leave, the case was ultimately a collection of individual personnel actions over which Congress has no authority.

“To be sure, it’s a large number of individuals,” Brett Shumate, the acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s civil division, said during arguments Friday. “But it is still a personnel action.”

Trump mounted an assault on U.S. foreign aid almost immediately after taking office last month, and his administration has placed virtually of the agency’s employees on administrative leave. On his Truth Social account Friday, he wrote that USAID should be closed down.

Before Trump targeted the agency, which is independent from but guided by the State Department, USAID employed about 10,000 workers and contractors. By Friday, that number was set to be reduced to only a few hundred people still viewed as essential by the agency’s new leaders in the State Department.

Asked by Nichols why the Trump administration was moving so fast against USAID workers, a Justice Department lawyer said the administration was trying to root out “corruption and fraud.” Nichols said the Trump administration had not cited those factors in its order to place workers on leave.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2025 The New York Times Company