法官阻止特朗普让数千名美国国际开发署工作人员休假并给他们 30 天的期限
【中美创新时报2025 年 2 月 8 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）周五，一名联邦法官对唐纳德·特朗普总统及其亿万富翁盟友埃隆·马斯克解散美国国际开发署的行为进行了首次重大挫折，下令暂时停止解散数千名机构工作人员的计划。美联社记者埃伦·尼克迈耶和迈克尔·昆泽尔曼对此作了下述报道。
特朗普任命的美国地区法官卡尔·尼科尔斯 (Carl Nichols) 也同意阻止一项命令，该命令将给予数千名海外美国国际开发署工作人员 30 天的紧急行政休假时间，让他们将家人和家庭迁回美国，费用由政府承担。
法官表示，这两项举措都将使美国工人及其配偶和子女面临不必要的风险和费用。
尼科尔斯指出，海外工人称，特朗普政府在匆忙关闭该机构及其海外项目时，切断了一些工人与政府电子邮件和其他通信系统的联系，以便在发生健康或安全紧急情况时联系美国政府。
美联社早些时候报道称，美国国际开发署在中东和其他地区的承包商发现，当政府突然让他们休假时，他们手机上的“紧急按钮”应用程序甚至被删除或禁用。
法官在周五晚上的命令中表示：“叙利亚的行政休假与贝塞斯达的行政休假不同。”
在同意停止美国国际开发署工作人员以政府费用回国的 30 天期限时，尼科尔斯引用了机构员工的陈述，这些员工在国外生活了几十年后在美国无家可归，他们面临着在年中让有特殊需要的儿童辍学，并遇到了其他困难。
法官还下令恢复已被特朗普政府停职的美国国际开发署工作人员的原职。但他拒绝了两个联邦雇员协会的请求，该协会要求暂时阻止特朗普政府的资金冻结，该冻结已关闭了这个已有 60 年历史的机构及其工作，等待对工人的诉讼进行更多听证。
尼科尔斯在周五早些时候关于暂停特朗普政府行动的听证会上强调，他的命令不是对员工要求撤销政府迅速摧毁该机构的请求作出的决定。
“关闭它，”特朗普在法官裁决前在社交媒体上对美国国际开发署说。
美国外交服务协会和美国政府雇员联合会认为，特朗普无权在未经国会批准的情况下关闭该机构。民主党议员也提出了同样的论点。
特朗普政府周五迅速采取行动，彻底抹去了该机构的名称。起重机上的工人将华盛顿总部石头门上的名字擦掉了。他们用胶带将招牌上的名字遮住，并取下了美国国际开发署的旗帜。有人在门外放了一束鲜花。
特朗普政府和马斯克（他正在管理一个削减预算的政府效率部）将美国国际开发署作为迄今为止最大的目标，这是对联邦政府及其许多项目的前所未有的挑战。
政府任命的官员和马斯克的团队已经关闭了该机构的几乎所有资金，停止了全球的援助和发展项目。他们让工作人员和承包商休假，并将他们锁定在该机构的电子邮件和其他系统之外。据民主党议员称，他们还带走了美国国际开发署的计算机服务器。
“这是对整个机构几乎所有人员的全面裁员，”员工协会的律师卡拉·吉尔布赖德告诉法官。
司法部律师布雷特·舒马特辩称，政府拥有让机构工作人员休假所需的所有法律权力。“政府每天都在全面这样做，”舒马特说。“这就是这里发生的事情。只是人数很多。”
周五的裁决是特朗普政府在法庭上遭遇的最新挫折，特朗普政府的政策包括为联邦工作人员提供经济激励以促使其辞职，并取消在美国出生的非法移民的出生公民权，这些政策已被法官暂时搁置。
周五早些时候，六名美国国际开发署官员在接受记者采访时强烈反驳国务卿马可·卢比奥的说法，即海外最基本的救生项目正在获得豁免以继续获得资金。官员们说，没有一个项目得到豁免。
他们说没有获得豁免的项目包括：美国农民种植的价值 4.5 亿美元的粮食，足以养活 3600 万人，但这些粮食没有得到支付或运送；以及为苏丹达尔富尔地区因战争而流离失所的 160 万人提供供水，这些人没有钱购买燃料来运行沙漠中的水泵。
法官的命令涉及特朗普政府本周早些时候决定将几乎所有美国国际开发署工作人员从全球各地撤出的决定。
特朗普和国会共和党人曾谈到将大量减少的援助和发展项目转移到国务院。
据因担心遭到报复而不愿透露姓名的官员称，在特朗普政府为联邦工作人员辞职提供经济激励的最后期限到来后，国务院内部的员工担心会出现大幅裁员。 一名法官暂时阻止了这一提议，并定于周一举行听证会。
本周早些时候，政府给了几乎所有被派往海外的美国国际开发署工作人员 30 天的时间，从周五开始返回美国，政府将支付他们的旅行和搬家费用。大使馆的外交官要求给予一些人更多时间，包括被迫在年中让孩子退学的家庭。
周四晚些时候，美国国际开发署在其网站上发布通知，澄清所有被休假的海外人员都不会被迫离开他们工作的国家。但该机构表示，选择停留超过 30 天的工人可能必须自担费用，除非他们获得特定的困难豁免。
卢比奥周四在访问多米尼加共和国期间表示，政府将帮助工作人员“在 30 天内”回家，“如果他们愿意”，并会听取有特殊情况的人的意见。
他坚称这些举措是获得合作的唯一途径，因为工作人员正在“偷偷支付款项，并在暂停命令的情况下强行支付款项”。该机构工作人员否认他阻挠的说法。
卢比奥说，美国政府将继续提供外援，“但这将是合理且符合我们国家利益的外援。”
美联社驻华盛顿记者马修·李、法努什·阿米里和林赛·怀特赫斯特对本报道亦有贡献。
题图：示威者和立法者集会反对唐纳德·特朗普总统及其盟友埃隆·马斯克扰乱联邦政府，包括解散美国国际开发署，该署负责管理国会批准的对外援助。J. Scott Applewhite/美联社
附原英文报道：
Judge blocks Trump from placing thousands of USAID workers on leave and giving them 30-day deadline
By ELLEN KNICKMEYER and MICHAEL KUNZELMAN The Associated Press,Updated February 7, 2025
Demonstrators and lawmakers rally against President Donald Trump and his ally Elon Musk as they disrupt the federal government, including dismantling the US Agency for International Development, which administers foreign aid approved by Congress.J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Friday dealt President Donald Trump and billionaire ally Elon Musk their first big setback in their dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, ordering a temporary halt to plans to pull thousands of agency staffers off the job.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, also agreed to block an order that would have given the thousands of overseas USAID workers the administration wanted to place on abrupt administrative leave just 30 days to move families and households back to the U.S. on government expense.
Both moves would have exposed the U.S. workers and their spouses and children to unwarranted risk and expense, the judge said.
Nichols pointed to accounts from workers abroad that the Trump administration, in its rush to shut down the agency and its programs abroad, had cut some workers off from government emails and other communication systems they needed to reach the U.S. government in case of a health or safety emergency.
The Associated Press reported earlier that USAID contractors in the Middle East and elsewhere had found even “panic button” apps wiped off their mobile phones or disabled when the administration abruptly furloughed them.
“Administrative leave in Syria is not the same as administrative leave in Bethesda,” the judge said in his order Friday night.
In agreeing to stop the 30-day deadline given USAID staffers to return home at government expense, Nichols cited statements from agency employees who had no home to go to in the U.S. after decades abroad, who faced pulling children with special needs out of school midyear, and had other difficulties.
The judge also ordered USAID staffers already placed on leave by the Trump administration reinstated. But he declined a request from two federal employee associations to grant a temporary block on a Trump administration funding freeze that has shut down the six-decade-old agency and its work, pending more hearings on the workers’ lawsuit.
Nichols stressed in the hearing earlier Friday on the request to pause the Trump administration’s actions that his order was not a decision on the employees’ request to roll back the administration’s swiftly moving destruction of the agency.
“CLOSE IT DOWN,” Trump said on social media of USAID before the judge’s ruling.
The American Foreign Service Association and the American Federation of Government Employees argue that Trump lacks the authority to shut down the agency without approval from Congress. Democratic lawmakers have made the same argument.
Trump’s administration moved quickly Friday to literally erase the agency’s name. Workers on a crane scrubbed the name from the stone front of its Washington headquarters. They used duct tape to block it out on a sign and took down USAID flags. Someone placed a bouquet of flowers outside the door.
The Trump administration and Musk, who is running a budget-cutting Department of Government Efficiency, have made USAID their biggest target so far in an unprecedented challenge of the federal government and many of its programs.
Administration appointees and Musk’s teams have shut down almost all funding for the agency, stopping aid and development programs worldwide. They have placed staffers and contractors on leave and furlough and locked them out of the agency’s email and other systems. According to Democratic lawmakers, they also carted away USAID’s computer servers.
“This is a full-scale gutting of virtually all the personnel of an entire agency,” Karla Gilbride, the attorney for the employee associations, told the judge.
Justice Department attorney Brett Shumate argued that the administration has all the legal authority it needs to place agency staffers on leave. “The government does this across the board every day,” Shumate said. “That’s what’s happening here. It’s just a large number.”
Friday’s ruling is the latest setback in the courts for the Trump administration, whose policies to offer financial incentives for federal workers to resign and end birthright citizenship for anyone born in the U.S. to someone in the country illegally have been temporarily paused by judges.
Earlier Friday, a group of a half-dozen USAID officials speaking to reporters strongly disputed assertions from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that the most essential life-saving programs abroad were getting waivers to continue funding. None were, the officials said.
Among the programs they said had not received waivers: $450 million in food grown by U.S. farmers sufficient to feed 36 million people, which was not being paid for or delivered; and water supplies for 1.6 million people displaced by war in Sudan’s Darfur region, which were being cut off without money for fuel to run water pumps in the desert.
The judge’s order involved the Trump administration’s decision earlier this week to pull almost all USAID workers off the job and out of the field worldwide.
Trump and congressional Republicans have spoken of moving a much-reduced number of aid and development programs under the State Department.
Within the State Department itself, employees fear substantial staff reductions following the deadline for the Trump administration’s offer of financial incentives for federal workers to resign, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. A judge temporarily blocked that offer and set a hearing Monday.
The administration earlier this week gave almost all USAID staffers posted overseas 30 days, starting Friday, to return to the U.S., with the government paying for their travel and moving costs. Diplomats at embassies asked for waivers allowing more time for some, including families forced to pull their children out of schools midyear.
In a notice posted on the USAID website late Thursday, the agency clarified that none of the overseas personnel put on leave would be forced to leave the country where they work. But it said that workers who chose to stay longer than 30 days might have to cover their own expenses unless they received a specific hardship waiver.
Rubio said Thursday during a trip to the Dominican Republic that the government would help staffers get home within 30 days “if they so desired” and would listen to those with special conditions.
He insisted the moves were the only way to get cooperation because staffers were working “to sneak through payments and push through payments despite the stop order” on foreign assistance. Agency staffers deny his claims of obstruction.
Rubio said the U.S. government will continue providing foreign aid, “but it is going to be foreign aid that makes sense and is aligned with our national interest.”
AP reporters Matthew Lee, Farnoush Amiri and Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington contributed to this report.
