On Wednesday, Judge Carter granted a preliminary injunction to halt efforts from the Department of Labor (DOL) to close 99 private Job Corps centers that offer food, shelter and vocational resources to impoverished youth. The DOL admitted that it did not follow statutory requirements for closures, but argued that the termination of contracts only paused operations, rather than shuttering any centers. The Court concluded that this was a “distinction without a difference” and that the DOL exceeded its statutory authority.

Earlier this year, the DOL implemented two new policies that gave rise to this lawsuit. First, the DOL stopped performing statutorily required background checks for new applicants, which “effectively prevented new enrollment in the program, because, by statute, new enrollees may not begin the program until after they pass these background checks.” Second, the DOL terminated all contracts with private Job Corps centers and informed them that all centers must be shut down by June 30, 2025.

The Court rejected the DOL’s argument that it “ha[s] simply paused operations by terminating their contracts with those centers” on the grounds that “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.” The Court distinguished the current closures from previous instances where agreements were terminated:

Critically, in the examples the DOL points to, only a handful of individual centers were impacted at the time, prospective students were still undergoing background checks, and students impacted by the stop-work-orders were given the option to transfer to other campuses while the DOL decided whether to repair or close the center. Here, all 99 private Job Corps centers are being impacted and the DOL concedes that there are no discussions concerning the consolidation or reopening of any of the centers. There are not even concrete deadlines by which the DOL intends to hold such discussions or make any decisions with respect to the reopening of any of the centers. This is because the future of the centers has already been decided. . . . The DOL’s decision to close the centers is further reflected in their proposed budget for 2026, which eliminates the funding for private Job Corps centers. The DOL seeks the same result now, but the DOL may not circumvent its responsibilities by rendering the private Job Corps centers inoperable while it awaits a decision from Congress on its budget proposal.

Note that while the scope of the injunction granted initially was nationwide, with an exception for similar cases that were pending in other jurisdictions, the Court has since requested additional briefing from the parties regarding this scope in light of the Supreme Court’s Trump v. CASA decision on Friday.