A federal judge cleared the way for the Trump administration to follow through on plans to decimate the ranks of the main American aid agency, known as U.S.A.I.D., tossing out a key challenge to mass reductions to the agency’s work force.
In an order on Friday, Judge Carl J. Nichols of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia wrote that it was no longer justifiable to stall the agency from enacting the plans, which include placing more than 2,000 additional employees on administrative leave and forcing some workers posted overseas to return home.
The judge found that the group that brought the lawsuit — an association representing foreign service workers — had not demonstrated that its members faced irreparable injury so far and that it was unlikely to win its case, citing a precedent brought up in other cases suggesting that Congress had established other ways of handling employment disputes by federal workers.
The Trump administration has proposed placing nearly the entire global work force of the agency on administrative leave while simultaneously canceling a raft of its contracts and imposing a freeze on nearly all foreign aid spending.
The American Foreign Service Association, which brought the lawsuit on behalf of its members, had argued that the plan was carried out dangerously, potentially stranding overseas workers by locking them out of communications systems. It argued that what initially appeared to be a “mandatory recall notice,” requiring overseas workers to return to the United States within 30 days, also risked harming their families and children who had settled into lives abroad.
Judge Nichols found that the risk of any immediately disruptive action appeared to have abated after a declaration by Pete Marocco, a Trump appointee in charge of foreign aid.