{"id":125677,"date":"2025-02-08T00:56:38","date_gmt":"2025-02-08T00:56:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/judge-says-he-will-temporarily-block-trump-from-placing-2200-usaid-workers-on-paid-leave-the-associated-press\/"},"modified":"2025-02-08T00:56:38","modified_gmt":"2025-02-08T00:56:38","slug":"judge-says-he-will-temporarily-block-trump-from-placing-2200-usaid-workers-on-paid-leave-the-associated-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/judge-says-he-will-temporarily-block-trump-from-placing-2200-usaid-workers-on-paid-leave-the-associated-press\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge says he will temporarily block Trump from placing 2,200 USAID workers on paid leave – The Associated Press"},"content":{"rendered":"

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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\u2019s headquarters in Washington, Friday, Feb. 7, 2025. (AP Photo\/Jose Luis Magana)
A street sign with names of U.S. government agencies housed at the Ronald Reagan Building, including the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID headquarters in Washington, is pictured with one building occupant taped, Friday, Feb. 7, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Demonstrators and lawmakers rally against President Donald Trump and his ally Elon Musk as they disrupt the federal government, including dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, which administers foreign aid approved by Congress, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025. (AP Photo\/J. Scott Applewhite)
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, center right, walks with Edwin F. Lopez, the attach\u00e9 for DHS Homeland Security Investigations, as they walk toward a Venezuelan government airplane that Rubio announced the U.S. is seizing at La Isabela International Airport in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025. (AP Photo\/Mark Schiefelbein, Pool)
An unidentified U.S. soldier stands guard as Albanian aid workers unload boxes of U.S. \u201cHumanitarian Daily Rations\u201d from a transport helicopter in Kukes, Albania at the Albania-Kosovo border April 4, 1999. (AP Photo\/Michel Euler, File)
Ugandan human rights activist Kennedy Pius reads a letter from USAID on his laptop at home in Kampala, Uganda, Jan. 28, 2025. (AP Photo\/Hajarah Nalwadda)
Demonstrators and lawmakers rally against President Donald Trump and his ally Elon Musk as they disrupt the federal government, including dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, which administers foreign aid approved by Congress, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025. (AP Photo\/J. Scott Applewhite)
Demonstrators and lawmakers rally against President Donald Trump and his ally Elon Musk as they disrupt the federal government, including dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, which administers foreign aid approved by Congress, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025. (AP Photo\/J. Scott Applewhite)
A bouquet of white flowers placed outside the headquarters of the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, is pictured, Friday, Feb. 7, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
The American flag flies alone beside an empty flagpole previously flying the flag of the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, in front the USAID headquarters in Washington, Friday, Feb. 7, 2025. (AP Photo\/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
The door of the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, is seen with the sign and logo removed from the wall outside of the agency\u2019s headquarters in Washington, Friday, Feb. 7, 2025. (AP Photo\/Jose Luis Magana)
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\u2019s headquarters in Washington, Friday, Feb. 7, 2025. (AP Photo\/Jose Luis Magana)
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\u2019s headquarters in Washington, Friday, Feb. 7, 2025. (AP Photo\/Jose Luis Magana)
A street sign with names of U.S. government agencies housed at the Ronald Reagan Building, including the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID headquarters in Washington, is pictured with one building occupant taped, Friday, Feb. 7, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
A street sign with names of U.S. government agencies housed at the Ronald Reagan Building, including the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID headquarters in Washington, is pictured with one building occupant taped, Friday, Feb. 7, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Demonstrators and lawmakers rally against President Donald Trump and his ally Elon Musk as they disrupt the federal government, including dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, which administers foreign aid approved by Congress, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025. (AP Photo\/J. Scott Applewhite)
Demonstrators and lawmakers rally against President Donald Trump and his ally Elon Musk as they disrupt the federal government, including dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, which administers foreign aid approved by Congress, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025. (AP Photo\/J. Scott Applewhite)
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, center right, walks with Edwin F. Lopez, the attach\u00e9 for DHS Homeland Security Investigations, as they walk toward a Venezuelan government airplane that Rubio announced the U.S. is seizing at La Isabela International Airport in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025. (AP Photo\/Mark Schiefelbein, Pool)
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, center right, walks with Edwin F. Lopez, the attach\u00e9 for DHS Homeland Security Investigations, as they walk toward a Venezuelan government airplane that Rubio announced the U.S. is seizing at La Isabela International Airport in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025. (AP Photo\/Mark Schiefelbein, Pool)
An unidentified U.S. soldier stands guard as Albanian aid workers unload boxes of U.S. \u201cHumanitarian Daily Rations\u201d from a transport helicopter in Kukes, Albania at the Albania-Kosovo border April 4, 1999. (AP Photo\/Michel Euler, File)
An unidentified U.S. soldier stands guard as Albanian aid workers unload boxes of U.S. \u201cHumanitarian Daily Rations\u201d from a transport helicopter in Kukes, Albania at the Albania-Kosovo border April 4, 1999. (AP Photo\/Michel Euler, File)
Ugandan human rights activist Kennedy Pius reads a letter from USAID on his laptop at home in Kampala, Uganda, Jan. 28, 2025. (AP Photo\/Hajarah Nalwadda)
Ugandan human rights activist Kennedy Pius reads a letter from USAID on his laptop at home in Kampala, Uganda, Jan. 28, 2025. (AP Photo\/Hajarah Nalwadda)
Demonstrators and lawmakers rally against President Donald Trump and his ally Elon Musk as they disrupt the federal government, including dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, which administers foreign aid approved by Congress, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025. (AP Photo\/J. Scott Applewhite)
Demonstrators and lawmakers rally against President Donald Trump and his ally Elon Musk as they disrupt the federal government, including dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, which administers foreign aid approved by Congress, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025. (AP Photo\/J. Scott Applewhite)
Demonstrators and lawmakers rally against President Donald Trump and his ally Elon Musk as they disrupt the federal government, including dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, which administers foreign aid approved by Congress, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025. (AP Photo\/J. Scott Applewhite)
Demonstrators and lawmakers rally against President Donald Trump and his ally Elon Musk as they disrupt the federal government, including dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, which administers foreign aid approved by Congress, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025. (AP Photo\/J. Scott Applewhite)
A bouquet of white flowers placed outside the headquarters of the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, is pictured, Friday, Feb. 7, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
A bouquet of white flowers placed outside the headquarters of the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, is pictured, Friday, Feb. 7, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
The American flag flies alone beside an empty flagpole previously flying the flag of the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, in front the USAID headquarters in Washington, Friday, Feb. 7, 2025. (AP Photo\/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
The American flag flies alone beside an empty flagpole previously flying the flag of the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, in front the USAID headquarters in Washington, Friday, Feb. 7, 2025. (AP Photo\/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
The door of the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, is seen with the sign and logo removed from the wall outside of the agency\u2019s headquarters in Washington, Friday, Feb. 7, 2025. (AP Photo\/Jose Luis Magana)
The door of the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, is seen with the sign and logo removed from the wall outside of the agency\u2019s headquarters in Washington, Friday, Feb. 7, 2025. (AP Photo\/Jose Luis Magana)
▶ Follow today\u2019s live updates on the Trump administration<\/a><\/span>
WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 A federal judge on Friday dealt President Donald Trump and billionaire ally Elon Musk their first big setback in their dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development,<\/a><\/span> saying he will order a temporary halt to plans to pull thousands of agency staffers off the job.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, who was nominated by Trump, sided with two federal employee associations in agreeing to a pause in plans to put 2,200 employees on paid leave as of midnight Friday. Nichols stressed his order was not a decision on the employees\u2019 request to roll back the administration\u2019s swiftly moving destruction of the agency.
\u201cCLOSE IT DOWN,\u201d Trump said on social media of USAID before the judge\u2019s ruling.
The American Foreign Service Association and the American Federation of Government Employees argue that Trump lacks the authority to shut down the six-decade-old aid agency without approval from Congress. Democratic lawmakers have made the same argument.
Trump\u2019s administration moved quickly Friday to literally erase the agency\u2019s name. Workers on a crane scrubbed the name from the stone front of its Washington headquarters. They used duct tape to block it out on a sign and took down USAID flags. Someone placed a bouquet of flowers outside the door.
The Trump administration and Musk<\/a><\/span>, who is running a budget-cutting Department of Government Efficiency, have made USAID their biggest target so far in an unprecedented challenge of the federal government and many of its programs. <\/p>\n

Administration appointees and Musk\u2019s teams have shut down almost all funding for the agency, stopping aid and development programs worldwide, placed staffers and contractors on leave and furlough and locked them out of the agency\u2019s email and other systems. According to Democratic lawmakers, they also carted away USAID\u2019s computer servers.
\u201cThis is a full-scale gutting of virtually all the personnel of an entire agency,\u201d Karla Gilbride, the attorney for the employee associations, told the judge.
Department of Justice attorney Brett Shumate argued that the administration has all the legal authority it needs to place agency staffers on leave. \u201cThe government does this across the board every day,\u201d Shumate said. \u201cThat\u2019s what\u2019s happening here. It\u2019s just a large number.\u201d
Friday\u2019s ruling is the latest setback in the courts for the Trump administration, whose policies to offer financial incentives for federal workers<\/a><\/span> to resign and end birthright citizenship<\/a><\/span> for anyone born in the U.S. to someone in the country illegally have been temporarily paused by judges.
Earlier Friday, a group of a half-dozen USAID officials speaking to reporters strongly disputed assertions from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that the most essential life-saving programs abroad were getting waivers to continue.
Among the programs they said had not received waivers: $450 million in food grown by U.S. farmers sufficient to feed 36 million people, which was not being paid for or delivered; and water supplies for 1.6 million people displaced by war in Sudan\u2019s Darfur region, which were being cut off without money for fuel to run water pumps in the desert.
The judge\u2019s order involved the Trump administration decision earlier this week to pull almost all USAID workers off the job and out of the field worldwide. Besides the 2,200 workers temporarily protected from being put on leave, the fate was not clear of others that work with the agency and have been laid off, furloughed or put on leave.
Trump and congressional Republicans have spoken of moving a much-reduced number of aid and development programs under the State Department.
Within the State Department itself, employees fear substantial staff reductions following the deadline for the Trump administration\u2019s 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.
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 cover their own expenses unless they received a specific hardship waiver.
Rubio said Thursday during a trip to the Dominican Republic<\/a><\/span> that the government would help staffers get home within 30 days \u201cif they so desired\u201d and would listen to those with special conditions.
He insisted the moves were the only way to get cooperation because staffers were working \u201cto sneak through payments and push through payments despite the stop order\u201d on foreign assistance. Agency staffers deny his claims of obstruction.
Rubio said the U.S. government will continue providing foreign aid, \u201cbut it is going to be foreign aid that makes sense and is aligned with our national interest.\u201d
AP reporters Matthew Lee, Farnoush Amiri and Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n

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Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.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\u2019s headquarters in Washington, Friday, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":125678,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}