Judge extends temporary pause in USDA relocations as he considers indefinite freeze

A federal judge in San Francisco is weighing whether or not to block the Agriculture Department from carrying out its sweeping reorganization plans. 

“I’m not firmly decided as to whether I'm going to grant the preliminary injunction motion or not,” U.S. District Court Judge Vince Chhabria told both parties in a hearing Tuesday. But Chhabria is directing both parties to draft proposed language for a potential injunction by Oct. 7. 

He’s also extending an administrative stay until Oct. 13, which will continue to put a temporary hold on deadlines for all “management directed reassignment” letters USDA has issued so far. The initial administrative stay was scheduled to expire on Oct. 2.

A preliminary injunction in this case would indefinitely bar USDA from carrying out relocation plans for about 2,600 employees while the court continues to review the merits of the case. 

Chhabria said he anticipated that if he issues an injunction, the Trump administration may immediately try to appeal it.  

“If I issue a preliminary injunction, I'm not going to stay it,” he told DOJ attorneys representing the administration. “If you want to rush to the Ninth Circuit to get a stay or whatever, you need to be ready to do that.” 

Plaintiffs argued that the relocations are a veiled attempt for USDA to further shrink its workforce. USDA already cut its workforce by about 20,000 employees largely through voluntary separation incentives last year – about a fifth of its total workforce. 

A coalition of federal employee labor unions, nonprofits and local governments argue that USDA is trying to circumvent guardrails on USDA reorganization established by Congress. Lawmakers included a provision in the fiscal 2026 appropriations bill for USDA that blocked officials from reorganizing or relocating offices or employees without approval from the House and Senate appropriations committees. 

Chhabria spent much of Tuesday’s hearing questioning the extent of authority Congress and its appropriations committees have over USDA’s reorganization decisions.

“I think what carries the greatest weight is the actual language of the appropriations legislation, which says you can't do this,” he said. “The default is that you’re not allowed to do it.” 

While Congress controls funding for federal agencies, Chhabria said the specific mechanism lawmakers included in the FY 2026 spending package was “obviously unconstitutional,” and that “Congress must have known that it was unconstitutional.”

“If Congress knows full well that the committee permission provision is unconstitutional, then is there an argument for just treating it as if it never happened? As if Congress did nothing to ratchet up the restriction on agency action?” he said. 

A Congressional Research Service report in April notes that “courts generally have upheld congressional notification requirements, sometimes called ‘report and wait’ provisions” in prior spending bills, but that the requirement to obtain committee approval prior to completing a reorganization “raises legal issues concerning Congress's use of a ‘legislative veto.’” 

In a written order on Tuesday, Chhabria stated that it was “significant that Congress added an approval requirement” to the FY 2026 spending bill, “after it had been on the books as a notice-and-wait provision for many years.” 

“Congress did not want USDA to be spending money on these kinds of reorganization activities, unless it got permission from the committees,” he said during Tuesday’s hearing. “And so, if you take away the committee-approval provision, then what you're left with is Congress doesn't want the USDA to be engaging in spending this money on these kinds of reorganization activities,  unless it goes and gets legislation passed to create an exception to the prohibition.”

Justice Department attorney Taylor Pitz told the judge that USDA “has substantive legal authority to reorganize.” Agency officials, she added, have notified lawmakers about USDA’s reorganization plans, but aren’t looking for congressional approval to proceed with those plans. 

“The agency has not considered itself bound to accept congressional approval in order to proceed,” Pitz said. 

She argued that the appropriations committees included language in the FY 2026 spending package that only restricted a “reprogramming, transfer of funds, or reimbursement.” 

“It's really just a limitation of the department's appropriations tools to affect a reorganization. It's not, ‘you can't reorganize unless you get approval.’ It’s, ‘can't move money around a certain way,’” she said. 

Pitz also said Congress didn’t include additional language to block USDA reorganization in a recently passed continuing resolution keeping the federal government funded through Dec. 11. 

“It could have very easily, specifically prevented the use of funds for these activities. Congress has chosen not to do that. Congress is well aware of all of these reorganization activities, and it has not stepped in or otherwise changed the language in the appropriations going forward,” Pitz said. 

Corrine Johnson, an attorney for plaintiffs, argued that USDA moving around funds to carry out its reorganization is exactly what Congress sought to block. 

“They are reprogramming these funds to use them for a different purpose than which they were allocated for. So it falls under the definition of reprogramming,” Johnson said. 

Chhabria questioned whether USDA has adequately prepared for attrition in cases where employees quit rather than opt for relocation — and whether that level of attrition could make it harder for USDA component agencies to carry out their work. 

“Even if it's with an eye towards having a better organization — you know, a more modern, less bloated organizational structure or whatever – if, when you're making that transition, you're going to lose a bunch of key personnel who provide support to the people in Tahoe National Forest to protect against fires and things like that, that might interfere with the ability of the agency to perform its functions,” he said. 

DOJ attorneys told the court in August that USDA hadn’t conducted any attrition analysis yet, but will do so, "in conjunction with hiring and facilities planning at relocation sites as it finalizes relocation plans on an agency-by-agency basis."

Pitz said all of the changes that the agency is proposing are “with the goal of how do we deliver services more effectively,” and that only about 2% of USDA’s total workforce is being asked to relocate. 

“I think that itself demonstrates the agency is very carefully considering potential attrition and trying to mitigate the effects of it,” Pitz said. 

Johnson said some USDA components are more disproportionately impacted by relocations than others. The Food and Nutrition Service, which USDA has now rebranded as the Food and Nutrition Administration, is looking to relocate about 700 of its approximately 1,200 employees — about 65% of its total workforce. The agency administers 16 nutrition assistance programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). 

“That is a huge impact on the workforce if there is any appreciable level of attrition,” Johnson said, adding that some offices are “severely understaffed,” and that “workers are already overburdened.” 

Johnson said the Foreign Agriculture Service and other component agencies are also facing “similarly high levels of relocations.” 

USDA agencies saw major staffing losses when they relocated hundreds of D.C.-based employees to Kansas City, Mo., under the first Trump administration — a much smaller-scale plan than what USDA is proposing under the second Trump term. The Government Accountability Office found the vast majority of employees at the Economic Research Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture quit rather than relocate to Kansas City in 2019. 

Johnson added that “high attrition of people being relocated was likely” with USDA’s current relocation plans, “given the previous experience with the relocations to Kansas City.” 

In an Aug. 28 court filing, Mary Pletcher Rice, USDA’s acting principal deputy assistant secretary for administration, stated that 725 USDA employees have received relocation letters so far, and that 64% of them have accepted reassignment. 

Some USDA employees say they’ve accepted relocation notices because that is the only way they can proceed with a request for a hardship or medical exemption. Others say they have nominally agreed to relocate, but are still applying for other jobs. If that plan doesn’t work out, they may quit rather than move. 

USDA officials told the court on July 24 that the department is planning to hire nearly 16,000 employees this year. But according to updated staffing plans, the department expects that a “majority” of its hiring initiatives will “result in no net gain,” and will instead “offset expected attrition.”