The future of the government’s foreign assistance agency hangs in the balance after a federal judge temporarily paused the Trump administration’s plan to place thousands of employees on leave Friday night.
Unions representing federal employees took the fight to save the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to the courts after Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) took a sledgehammer to the agency, which the billionaire tech executive called a “ball of worms” that must “die.”
“The administration’s sudden dismantlement of USAID, an agency that has been performing life-saving work around the world, without any notice to its thousands of employees or to the people that it serves is a profound moral stain,” Lauren Bateman, an attorney at Public Citizen Litigation Group, which brought the case on behalf of the unions alongside Democracy Forward, told reporters Thursday evening.
But President Trump took to Truth Social Friday morning to double down on his efforts to dismantle the agency.
“USAID IS DRIVING THE RADICAL LEFT CRAZY, AND THERE IS NOTHING THEY CAN DO ABOUT IT BECAUSE 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!” Trump wrote.
Courts could decide USAID’s fate
Trump-appointed Judge Carl Nichols said he would issue a “limited, very limited” order Friday evening temporarily pausing the plan.
“They should not put those 2,200 people on administrative leave tonight,” Nichols said during the hearing. More than 10,000 people worked for the agency in 2023, two-thirds of whom were posted overseas, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), Congress’s in-house research institute.
The late-night order grants the American Foreign Service Association and American Federation of Government Employees a brief reprieve by stopping the government from placing thousands of USAID workers on administrative leave Friday at midnight and evacuating them from their host countries until Feb. 14 at midnight.
For the 500-some USAID employees currently on administrative leave, Nichols ordered they must be reinstated until that date and restored “complete access” to email, payment and security notification systems.
A preliminary injunction hearing has been scheduled for Feb. 12.
Legal experts and Democratic lawmakers have argued it would be illegal and unconstitutional for the executive branch to shutter an agency established and funded by Congress.
The agency was created in 1961 and codified by Congress in 1998, according to an analysis posted Monday by the CRS.
Trump and his allies have justified their plan by arguing that the agency is rife with fraud and corruption, pointing to millions of dollars for Politico “Pro” subscriptions and an alleged $47,000 to payment for a “transgender opera” in Colombia, which was debunked by the nonprofit newsroom NOTUS.
“When you look at USAID, the whole thing is a fraud. Very little put to good use. Every single line that I look at is either corrupt or ridiculous,” Trump told reporters Friday.
Thousands of USAID workers hold their breath
The drastic cuts and orders for employees abroad — two-thirds of USAID’s ranks, according to the CRS — to return to the U.S. within 30 days have thrown thousands of lives into a state of uncertainty.
Affidavits filed alongside the lawsuit detail the disruption that the sudden efforts to clean house have caused — and the potential consequences if the plan is carried out.
One USAID official who is 32 weeks pregnant described the “dangerous” stress and potential disruption to her birth plan. Another said that after 15 years as a foreign service officer, he and his two children would be effectively homeless if they are recalled abruptly to the U.S.
“In the very near future, we will be back in the United States homeless, without a car, without a school district, without employment, without a pension, and without health insurance. This experience has been degrading, dehumanizing, and traumatizing for my family,” the officer wrote.
Democrats plot long-shot legislative solutions
Democratic lawmakers have called the Trump administration’s efforts to shut down the agency illegal, unconstitutional and a coup, vowing to fight it in Congress, the courts and the press.
“They won the House of Representatives. They won the United States Senate. They have majorities across Congress. But we are not powerless,” Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said of Republicans during a Wednesday rally in support of USAID outside the Capitol.
Booker also backed Sen. Brian Schatz’s (D-Hawaii) blanket holds on Trump’s State Department nominees until the administration stops its efforts to dismantle USAID, which Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) called a “coup.”
“It is a power grab meant to silence critics. And let’s be clear, while USAID might be first, it is not going to be the last,” Jacobs said at the Wednesday rally. “But jokes on them, because who knows better how to work in an authoritarian country than all of you?”
Jacobs also said she plans to introduce a bill “to push back on Elon Musk’s illegal takeover of USAID.”
During the Wednesday rally, Rep. Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.) took a moment to address his Republican colleagues.
“You may be cheering this act by Trump and Musk, or maybe you’re just afraid of Trump or Musk, but let’s be clear: they’re bypassing you as well, and the American people will hold you accountable,” Stanton said.
“This doesn’t stop until the public and members of Congress on both sides of the aisle stand up and remind Trump that we are co-equal branches of government, and we need to restore checks and balances in this country.”
Republicans largely back Trump amid purge
Republican lawmakers have mostly remained silent or fallen in line behind Trump on the question of USAID’s future.
Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, came out early in support of stripping USAID of its independence.
During an interview last weekend on “Face the Nation,” Mast said he would “absolutely be for — if that’s the path we go down — removing USAID as a separate department and having it fall under one of the other parts of the United States Department of State because of its failure.”
The committee will hold a hearing next Thursday on the Trump administration’s move to effectively shut down the agency and freeze almost all foreign aid.
Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Chair James Risch (R-Idaho) said in a statement Monday that he was “supportive of the Trump Administration’s efforts to reform and restructure the agency in a way that better serves U.S. national security interests.”
Assault comes as federal employees weigh ‘buyouts’
The dismantling of USAID comes as the Trump administration is offering “deferred resignation” across the federal workforce — and warning federal workers who decline that offer may be next.
The offer, dubbed “A Fork in the Road,” promises employees that should they accept, they would retain full salary and benefits without working through Sept. 30. But the offer is not without risk, including the fact that Congress has only funded the government through mid-March.
The White House said 20,000 federal employees had accepted the offer as of Tuesday. The offer originally expired Thursday, but a federal judge extended the deadline to at least Monday, when the court will weigh a separate legal challenge brought by the American Federation of Government Employees.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt thanked the judge “for extending the deadline so more federal workers who refuse to show up to the office can take the Administration up on this very generous, once-in-a-lifetime offer.”
