A federal judge on Friday paused 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 issued a pause on efforts to place 2,200 staff on administrative leave and to expedite evacuations for personnel abroad until next Friday at 11:59 p.m.
He also rescinded leave for 500 workers already put on leave.
“All USAID employees currently on administrative leave shall be reinstated until that date, and shall be given complete access to email, payment, and security notification systems until that date, and no additional employees shall be placed on administrative leave before that date,” Nichols wrote.
Nichols also paused the administration’s plans to impose a 30-day deadline for USAID personnel abroad to return the the United States, saying “such short notice disrupts long-settled expectations and makes it nearly impossible for evacuated employees to adequately plan for their return to the United States.”
Nichols said he would not impose a pause on the funding freeze and scheduled an in-person preliminary injunction hearing for Wednesday.
A spokesperson for Democracy Forward, a progressive nonprofit group that filed a lawsuit against the Office of Management and Budget that resulted in a judge temporarily halting the Trump administration’s freeze on most federal grants and loans, said the organization is confident it will demonstrate standing.
“We are confident our clients will be able to demonstrate standing with more fulsome briefing and are committed to continuing to use the legal process to protect the privacy of the American people and to uphold the rule of law,” the spokesperson said.
Nichols had previewed plans to grant the order 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 at the hearing.
A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the judge’s order.
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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 decision marked “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.
