At the last minute, the Court suspends Trump's decision on USAID workers

The court temporarily blocked US President Donald Trump's request to place 2200 US Agency for International Development (USAID) employees on paid leave, hours before it was to happen.

Judge Carl Nichols issued a temporary "limited" injunction in response to a last-minute lawsuit filed by two unions trying to save the agency.

The order will remain in effect for seven days, until midnight on February 14th, it writes. cnn.

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Trump has claimed that USAID is a burden on taxpayers and wants to eliminate it. He plans to put about 10 of the agency's employees on "hold," leaving only 611 of them active.

About 500 employees have already been placed on administrative leave and another 2200 were expected to join them as of midnight Friday.

However, in the lawsuit filed on Friday, it was argued that the government was violating the US Constitution and that employees were suffering damages.

Judge Nichols sided with the unions, saying they would suffer “irreparable harm” if the court did not intervene, while “there would be no harm to the government.”

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"All USAID employees currently on administrative leave will be reinstated by that date and will have full access to email, payroll, and security systems by that date, and no additional employees will be placed on administrative leave before that date," the judge stated.

The court will consider a request to extend the temporary ban on Wednesday. It remains unclear from the court's decision what will happen to the rest of the jobs and employees.

Meanwhile, as the court was making this decision, signs with the agency's name were being removed and covered at USAID's headquarters in Washington. /Telegraph/