Reported by Cathy Bussewitz for AP News.
A federal judge on Wednesday granted a preliminary injunction to stop the U.S. Department of Labor from shutting down Job Corps, a residential program for low-income youth, until a lawsuit against the move is resolved.
The injunction bolsters a temporary restraining order U.S. District Judge Andrew Carter issued earlier this month, when he directed the Labor Department to cease removing Job Corps students from housing, terminating jobs or otherwise suspending the nationwide program without congressional approval.
Founded in 1964, Job Corps aims to help teenagers and young adults who struggled to finish traditional high school and find jobs. The program provides tuition-free housing at residential centers, training, meals and health care.
“Once Congress has passed legislation stating that a program like the Job Corps must exist, and set aside funding for that program, the DOL is not free to do as it pleases; it is required to enforce the law as intended by Congress,” Carter wrote in the ruling.
Department of Labor spokesperson Aaron Britt said the department was working closely with the Department of Justice to evaluate the injunction.
“We remain confident that our actions are consistent with the law,” Britt wrote in an email to The Associated Press.
The Labor Department said in late May that it would pause operations at all contractor-operated Job Corps centers by the end of June. It said the publicly funded program yielded poor results for its participants at a high cost to taxpayers, citing low student graduation rates and growing budget deficits.
“Secretary DeRemer rightfully paused funding to reassess underperforming programs, operating in a $140 million deficit, with massive safety concerns at Jobs Corps centers,” Taylor Rogers, White House spokesperson, said in an email. “The district court lacked jurisdiction to enter its order, and the Trump Administration looks forward to ultimate victory on the issue.”
The judge rejected the department’s claims that it did not need to follow a congressionally mandated protocol for closing down Job Corps centers because it wasn’t closing the centers, only pausing their activities.
“The way that the DOL is shuttering operations and the context in which the shuttering is taking place make it clear that the DOL is actually attempting to close the centers,” Carter wrote.
The harm faced by some of the students served by the privately run Job Corps centers is compelling, the judge said. Carter noted that one of the students named as a plaintiff in the lawsuit lives at a center in New York, where he is based.
If the Job Corps program is eliminated, she would lose all the progress she’s made toward earning a culinary arts certificate and “will immediately be plunged into homelessness,” the judge wrote. That’s far from the “minor upheaval” described by government lawyers, he said.
The AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department said the decision prevents any Job Corps center closures, job terminations or student removals, pending legislative action. “The law is clear: a federal agency cannot unilaterally dismantle a congressionally-mandated program like Job Corps,” the group said in a statement. “The students who enter the Job Corps program are the embodiment of the American dream: that if you work hard, no matter your beginnings, you can achieve success. We are proud of these students and of the Job Corps program.”