A worker removes the US International Development Agency brand at its headquarters on February 7, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Kayla Partovsky Gety pictures
A federal judge said on Friday that he would temporarily stop the Trump administration’s plan to put thousands of workers at the United States Agency for International Development in the administrative leave.
About 2,200 employees of the United States Agency for International Development were appointed on Friday night vacation at 11:59 pm East time, as part of President Donald Trump’s efforts to close the independent government agency.
A lawyer for the US Department of Justice at the court said that five hundred workers at the United States Agency for International Development are already obtaining an administrative leave.
Judge Karl Nichols, one of the two appointed Trump, issued the ruling after hearing arguments from the Trump administration and two groups representing federal workers in the US District Court in Washington, DC.
The workers’ groups, the American Foreign Service Association and the US Federation for government employees, have requested Nicoles to order the Trump administration “to immediately stop procedures to close the US International Development Agency operations.”
They have argued with a court earlier on Friday that the US Agency for International Development “suffers from an attack from unconstitutional and illegal attacks, and left its workers, stakeholders, about them and deserted beneficiaries in the wreckage and the global humanitarian crisis in the wake.”
They wrote that the Trump administration “dismantling the USA’s International Development Infrastructure” is “preparing for a semi -final killing.”
Nichols said on Friday afternoon that he would enter a “very limited” temporary restriction order before midnight to 2,200 workers at the United States Agency for International Development.
The judge said that he has not yet decided whether his ruling would cancel the administration’s administration’s order in the Trump administration for the 500 employees who already received it.
During the hearing, Nichols, the lawyer of the Justice Ministry of Justice, interrogated the reason for the Trump administration’s need to put 2,200 workers at the United States Agency for International Development on a vacation so quickly.
“What is this urgency?” The judge asked.
“The president decided that there is corruption and fraud in the United States Agency for International Development.”
The United States Agency for International Development was established in 1961 by President John Kennedy after the approval of the external aid law. He runs external aid and does a variety of other field tasks around the world.
In recent years, foreign aid has been about 1 % of the federal budget and less than 0.33 % of GDP, according to L. Brookings Institute September report.
But the American Agency for International Development has become a major target for Trump and Elon Musk, who accused the agency of being a non -accountable magnet for fraud and corruption.
“Corruption rarely sees levels before. Close it!” Trump books On the social truth on Friday morning.
Musk, who leads comprehensive efforts to reduce the size of the government through the so -called White House Ministry of Efficiency Ministry, or Dog, has dismantled the United States Agency for International Development.
“We spent the weekend in the US Agency for International Development in Wood Kepper,” MUSK wrote on the social media platform X.
