US judge pauses plan to put USAID workers on leave

A US judge on Friday temporarily allowed roughly 2,700 US Agency for International Development (USAID) employees put on leave by President Donald Trump's administration to go back to work, pausing aspects of a plan to dismantle the agency, Report informs via Reuters.

US District Judge Carl Nichols in Washington, who was nominated by Trump during his first term, partially granted a request from the largest US government workers' union and an association of foreign service workers who sued to stop the administration's efforts to close the agency.

Nichols's order, which will be in effect until February 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 who had already been furloughed.

It also bars the administration from relocating USAID humanitarian workers stationed outside the United States.

Nichols will consider a request for a longer-term pause at a hearing scheduled for Wednesday. He wrote in the order that the unions had made a "strong showing of irreparable harm" if the court did not intervene.