By Nate Raymond
BOSTON (Reuters) -A federal judge on Thursday allowed President Donald Trump’s administration to proceed with firing nearly every employee at a 1960s-era agency within the U.S. Department of Justice known as “America’s peacemaker” that is tasked with quelling racial and ethnic tensions in U.S. communities.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston declined at this early stage in the case to issue the temporary restraining order sought by civil rights groups that would bar the Justice Department from terminating 14 of the Community Relations Service’s 15 remaining employees on Friday.
The judge, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, said the 11 plaintiff organizations failed to show they would be irreparably harmed by the job cuts or explain how they would impact services they currently need. At a Wednesday hearing, she had noted that the affected employees even if they remained on staff after Friday would be furloughed as a result of the government shutdown that began October 1.
But the ruling could prove to be only a temporary loss for the plaintiffs as the case proceeds, as Talwani said they were likely to ultimately prove the job cuts were part of an effort to unlawfully dissolve the Community Relations Service.
“Plaintiffs have made a strong showing that they are likely to succeed on the merits, where Defendants concede that only Congress, and not the executive branch, may eliminate a Congressionally created agency,” she wrote.
The Justice Department and a lawyer for the plaintiffs did not respond to requests for comment.
The Community Relations Service was established by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and since then has deployed teams to mediate school desegregation conflicts and address unrest in various high-profile cases, including after the 2020 death of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed by a white Minneapolis police officer.
Under Trump, the agency has declined all new requests for services and assistance, according to the lawsuit. The Justice Department on September 29 began the process of conducting the layoffs as part of a “reduction in force.”
Trump has proposed abolishing the agency, and his budget proposal contains no money for it. But the Justice Department in court filings says it is simply carrying out a reorganization at this time, as only Congress could eliminate the agency.
The plaintiffs, who include the Ethical Society of Police and two local branches of the NAACP, point to a termination notice one official received saying the job cuts are intended to effectuate “the dissolution of the Community Relations Service.”
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Deepa Babington)
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