US judge pauses plan to put USAID workers on mass leave
WASHINGTON—A US judge on Friday temporarily allowed roughly 2,700 employees of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to return to work after President Donald Trump’s administration put them on leave, thereby suspending parts of a plan to dismantle the agency.
USAID personnel said on Friday that the abrupt moves against the agency have upended the lives of thousands of American employees and family members posted overseas, leaving them facing costly and difficult decisions.
But Trump, in a series of posts on X and on his social media network Truth Social, accused the agency of fraudulently spending “billions of dollars” on news coverage favoring the Democratic Party.
Washington Judge Carl Nichols, whom Trump had nominated during his first term, partially granted a request by an association of foreign service workers and by the largest US government workers’ union to stop the administration’s efforts to close the agency.
Disrupted lives
Nichols’ order, which will be in effect until Feb. 14, blocks the Trump administration from implementing plans to place about 2,200 USAID workers on paid leave beginning on Saturday and reinstates some 500 employees already furloughed.
It also bars the administration from relocating USAID humanitarian workers stationed outside the United States.
In his order, Nichols said the unions had made a “strong showing of irreparable harm” if the court did not intervene. At a hearing on Wednesday, he will consider a request for a longer-term pause.
But he rejected the unions’ other requests to reopen USAID buildings and restore funding for agency grants and contracts.
USAID employees and their families, who all spoke on condition of anonymity, said their lives have been disrupted by Trump’s moves to shut the agency.
They include pregnant women who may not be able to fly back to the United States to deliver their babies as well as families returning home without housing or schooling for their children.
“We literally have focused our life on this USAID mission, and we do not have a home to go back to,” said the spouse of a South America-based employee, who joined several agency personnel in an online briefing by StandUpForAID—a group of current and former officials raising awareness of the impacts of the cuts to the agency.
Another employee said “We are unsure if Secretary (of State Marco) Rubio and President Trump are going to abandon us overseas or abandon us when we land on American soil.”
Rubio, now acting USAID administrator, acknowledged on Wednesday that there were “members of (US)AID in their third trimester of pregnancy” and that the staff recall might have been disruptive.
‘Fake news media’
Another pregnant USAID official placed on administrative leave on Friday told Reuters that she had to scramble to change her delivery location to ensure her Department of State-arranged medical evacuation.
Reuters could not confirm the exact number of pregnant agency employees and spouses.
Karla Gilbride, a lawyer for the unions petitioning the court in behalf of USAID, had argued that “the major reduction in force, as well as the closure of offices [and] the forced relocation of these individuals were all done in excess of the executive’s authority in violation of the separation of powers.”
But Department of Justice lawyer Brett Shumate said, “The President has decided there is corruption and fraud at USAID.”
Trump, in one of his all-capitalized posts since Thursday, claimed that “billions of dollars have been stollen (sic) at USAID, and other agencies, much of it going to the fake news media as a ‘payoff’ for creating good stories about the Democrats.”
The Republican president also accused “left wing ‘rag’” Politico of receiving $8 million from USAID, after White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced on Wednesday that the government would cancel more than $8 million in subscription expenditure to the news organization.
Prominent Trump supporters, including his downsizing czar and X owner Elon Musk, have amplified the narrative about USAID funding Politico and other news outlets—all of which have issued statements rejecting the accusations.
Politico said it had never received US government funding, but acknowledged that some agencies subscribe to its policy intelligence news platform Politico Pro.
A spokesperson for BBC News said it did not receive any funding from USAID, adding that it is editorially independent from its charity wing BBC Media Action, which had received funds from USAID and other donors. Musk had recently claimed that USAID funded BBC.
Reuters, which also faced such accusations, said it didn’t have a contractual relationship with USAID.
