By Blake Brittain
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A federal judge on Thursday extended a pause on the Trump administration’s plan to put thousands of U.S. Agency for International Development workers on leave until next Friday while he considers a lawsuit by government employee unions.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols in Washington said at a hearing that he was concerned about the safety of USAID workers stationed abroad. He did not rule on the unions’ motion for a broader and longer-term order halting the administration’s aggressive cuts to the foreign aid agency’s operations.
Hours after he was inaugurated on January 20, President Donald Trump, a Republican, ordered all U.S. foreign aid to be paused to ensure it is aligned with his “America First” policy, throwing USAID, the United States’ main foreign aid agency, into chaos.
The U.S. State Department issued worldwide stop-work directives after the executive order was issued, halting lifesaving aid programs around the world with limited exceptions for emergency food delivery.
(Reporting By Blake Brittain in Washington, writing by Brendan Pierson in New York)
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