U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols removed his temporary block on the effort to remove all but a small fraction of USAID staffers from their posts and give those abroad a 30-day deadline to move back to the U.S. at government expense.
His ruling comes in a lawsuit filed by unions on behalf of workers.
The Trump administration and the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency have moved swiftly to shutter USAID, asserting that billions of dollars of taxpayers money have been wasted on projects that fall contrary to the president’s agenda.
On Thursday, another federal judge allowed Trump’s firings of federal workers to move forward.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper said he could not grant a motion from unions representing the workers to temporarily block the layoffs. He found that their complaint amounted to an employment dispute and must follow a different process outlined in federal employment law.
Cooper, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, a Democrat, wrote that judges are “duty-bound to decide legal issues based on even-handed application of law and precedent."
