USDA asks judge to lift employee relocation stay that ‘significantly hinders’ its operations

The Trump administration is asking a federal judge to lift a temporary hold on the Agriculture Department’s employee relocation plans, arguing that the ruling prevents USDA components from filling critical vacancies across its operations. 

Justice Department attorneys told the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in a filing submitted last Friday that an Oct. 13 stay barring USDA from carrying out employee relocations “significantly hinders USDA’s operations across the board.” 

DOJ attorneys wrote the stay makes it harder for the Forest Service to fill “critical positions” in wildfire management and avalanche mitigation, and “impairs USDA’s ability to conduct cutting-edge research.” 

Judge Vince Chhabria granted a stay in a case led by a coalition of federal employee labor unions, nonprofits and local governments that argued USDA’s sweeping relocation plans are a veiled effort to keep shrinking its workforce – and that USDA tried to circumvent guardrails on reorganization set by Congress in its most recent spending package. 

The court’s stay prohibits USDA from "issuing or enforcing [management-directed relocation] letters or any other notice or directive of reassignment or relocation in whole or in part.” The stay does not prevent USDA from relocating or reassigning USDA employees in the Washington, D.C. area to other offices within the region.

Chhabria previously told DOJ attorneys that, “if I issue a preliminary injunction, I’m not going to stay it.” But attorneys wrote that this new evidence “tilts the balance of the stay factors in Defendants’ favor.” 

Despite the court’s stay, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins recently told reporters that “we are full-bore ahead in the reorganization.”

USDA’s second-largest component, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, recently sent relocation notices to employees, seemingly in violation of the court’s stay. A USDA spokesperson said in a statement that the department "is complying with the court order," but did not elaborate, adding only that "USDA does not comment on specific personnel issues." 

Meanwhile, a USDA employee told Government Executive in October that his voluntary relocation from one job to another has been put on hold by the district court’s stay – despite the move having nothing to do with the department’s reorganization plans.  

Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz wrote in a declaration to the court that the court’s stay adds new hurdles to 2,500 voluntary employee reassignments the agency carries out every year. 

The agency relies on a mix of temporary and permanent reassignments to fight wildfires and carry out “prescribed” burns from October through March to mitigate the risk of wildfires in vulnerable areas. 

“Under the district court’s order, the Forest Service can use short term and temporary deployment responses for wildland fire and prescribed fire incidents, but the order limits our ability to fill the permanent positions including supervisors and other key management officials for wildland fire and prescribed fire,” Schultz wrote. 

The Forest Service currently has 25 vacancies for fire management officer and assistant fire management officer positions. 

“Without the ability to fill these positions beyond the commuting area, the stability of the oversight and leadership structure for wildland firefighting is at risk,” Schultz wrote. “Forest Service needs to be able to recruit for these critical positions outside the commuting area to ensure the best qualified candidates with proven experience can apply.” 

The Forest Service usually calls upon approximately 10,000 employees with red cards – meaning they hold certifications for firefighting duties and can deploy as needed to wildfires – when it needs to fill positions through temporary or permanent reassignments. 

Schultz wrote that the “Forest Service cannot afford to fill its legacy organizational structure,” and that the court’s stay “prevents the Forest Service from managing its personnel resources by limiting its ability to reassign its employees.” 

Likewise, the Forest Service says the court’s order makes it harder to fill vacancies at its 14 avalanche centers that provide forecasting and mitigation services across the Western United States. The Forest Service is looking to fill 10 avalanche center director positions. 

Schultz wrote that these roles are primarily filled via reassignments within the Forest Service, and that “as a result of this stay order, the leadership provided by the 10 center leads will likely not be in place for this year’s avalanche season.” 

Another senior USDA official told the court that delayed plans to close the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC) in Maryland requires the Agricultural Research Service “to allocate a greater portion of research funding to keep BARC’s expansive and dilapidated campus functioning,” and prevents the agency from reassigning researchers away projects defunded by Congress and onto current projects that still have funding. 

Scott Hutchins, under secretary for USDA’s research, education, and economics (REE) mission area, told the court that ARS has been funding the salaries of impacted researchers through agency-level resources through FY 2026, but that those positions are now at risk. He told the court that about 30 employees “are at risk of discontinued employment” if they are unable to relocate. 

“Any pause or delay in ARS’s ability to reassign these researchers will render the Agency unable to continue supporting these resources as long as they are at BARC, leading to likely discontinued employment,” Hutchins wrote. He added that some USDA employees are in limbo and “under significant stress,” because they bought or sold homes after getting relocation notices – but now these relocations are on hold because of the court’s order. 

“There are individuals who have moved all their belongings into storage and are staying in temporary housing while they look for a new home and will soon need temporary housing extensions which the Agency is not permitted to issue under the current stay order,” Hutchins wrote. 

USDA agencies saw major staffing losses when it 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. USDA under the second Trump term is planning to relocate about 2,600 of its employees. 

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. 

Hutchins wrote that “not all incumbent researchers will elect to move” to keep their jobs, but added that  we have every expectation that we will find strong candidates for positions in the new project locations.”

“Our experience with relocating NIFA and ERS several years ago demonstrated clearly that successful recruitment of talent in REE is possible, especially for college recruits outside the National Capital Region. In any circumstance, we will not be hiring at BARC for any new or vacated ARS positions, so research will continue to deteriorate,” he wrote.