A New York federal judge issued a nationwide preliminary injunction last week that allows Job Corps centers, like the Northlands Job Corps Center in Vergennes, to remain open while the legal battle to determine their fate continues.
In issuing the order, Judge Andrew Lamar Carter, a federal judge for the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, stated that the arguments by lawyers for National Job Corps Association and a litany of fellow defendants — ranging from Education and Training Resources, the contractor who operates the Job Corps in Vergennes, to current Job Corps students — were largely likely to succeed. The plaintiffs all sued the U.S. Department of Labor to stop its attempt to shut down the program.
In late May, the Department of Labor told Job Corps centers across the country to “pause” all of their operations. This order would have forced Job Corps center to shut down a program that provides room, food and a vocational education to low income 16 to 24 year olds by Monday, June 30.
Instead, the department’s order would have instated what the administration characterized as a “cost-effective” $2.9 billion “Make America Skilled Again” grant program that shifts from federal programs like Job Corps to state-led registered apprenticeships, intended to train workers and provide an alternative to college.
The Job Corps centers had already been funded from July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026 by Congress, which previously approved $1.7 billion for the program.
The plaintiffs in the case argued that the Department of Labor “effectively prevented new enrollment” by ending background checks starting in March, court documents show. Students attending Job Corps need to be background-checked to attend the program, but it is unclear now whether or not the government intends to resume background checks, or if they can be legally compelled to do so.
The Department of Labor claimed that they had only temporarily halted Job Corps operations. However, Carter wrote in his order 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.”
Carter also found that the Department of Labor did not have the power to end the program, writing that the department must “concede that, as part of the executive branch, they do not have the authority to unilaterally eliminate a congressionally mandated program like Job Corps.”
Carter also stated that there were clear harms in ending the programs, citing the circumstances of a plaintiff who is a student with the Job Corps program who was previously homeless.
The plaintiff “will immediately be plunged into homelessness, and she will lose all of the progress she has made in her culinary program. She would be forced to leave a stable residence and placed in a homeless shelter,” he wrote. It is “undisputed,” he wrote, that she was being harmed by the department’s actions.
“The Department of Labor is working closely with the Department of Justice to evaluate the injunction. We remain confident that our actions are consistent with the law,” Ryan L. Honick, a spokesperson for the Department of Labor wrote in an email.
A student enrolled at Northlands said the injunction is “a relief.”
“We were all kind of scrambling to figure out a plan in less than two weeks of finding a job and trying not to be homeless,” she said in an interview. VTDigger is not naming the student because of potential retaliation by the federal government.
She said that Northlands is the first place “I’ve ever had three meals a day, and a lot of emotional support, and it’s the first place that I think a lot of kids have a safe environment to explore themselves as a person and [have] the ability to grow.”
The student, who is enrolled in an associate’s degree information technology dual-program between Northlands and the Community College of Vermont, said the opportunities provided by the program were unprecedented for her.
“I would be the first woman in my family to get a degree,” she said. “I would probably stay in Vermont. I love it… I’d get a job in programming or software development after this. And I’d probably pursue my bachelor’s degree.”
The injunction was also cause for political celebration among Vermont’s Democratic state and federal officials.
Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark also joined 18 other attorneys general to file an amicus brief in support of the program.
Noting that she was “pleased, and not surprised,” by the court’s order, Clark added that “this order will allow Northlands Jobs Corps Center in Vergennes to continue serving young Vermonters in their journey to achieve their career goals and access stable housing.”
In an emailed statement, U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt. called the Job Corps “a critical training ground and opportunity pipeline for so many Vermonters.”
“I was pleased to see it remain open and operating for the time being,” she wrote. “But the Trump administration remains adamant in ripping away these programs that give Americans a fair shot at success – while training the exact trades workers that Vermont so desperately needs. I’ll keep fighting every step of the way to keep these funds going to the programs just as Congress mandated.”
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. and U.S. Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt. signed a letter with thirty eight other Senators urging the Department of Labor “to immediately reverse this decision to prevent a lapse in education and services for Job Corps students.”
The injunction comes at a time where the Trump administration is butting heads with the judicial branch, as many of President Donald Trump’s sweeping executive actions have been repelled by various federal judges through nationwide injunctions.
On June 27, Carter ordered parties involved in the Job Corps battle to file motions arguing whether or not the recent Supreme Court decision — which limited federal judges’ power to issue nationwide injunctions — would impact the injunction he filed by June 30. The Department of Labor requested an extension that may push the filing date to July 11.
Carter also denied any order to stay the case, meaning the battle for the future of the Job Corps seems poised to continue.
