Federal Judge Halts Job Corps Shutdown

Milwaukee Jobs Corps Center, 6665 N. 60th St. Photo taken June 3, 2025 by Graham Kilmer.

A federal judge in New York has issued an order allowing Job Corps Centers across the country, including in Wisconsin, to remain open. But the decision may since have been superseded by a U.S. Supreme Court decision ruling on Friday that federal district courts may not impose nationwide injunctions.

U.S. District Judge Andrew L. Carter, Jr. issued a preliminary injunction Wednesday, stating that the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) was acting unlawfully when it started shutting down federally-funded vocational schools called Job Corps Centers, and that it didn’t have the authority to shut them down to begin with.

“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.

The order was issued in a suit filed by National Job Corps Association against the labor department earlier this month. The injunction will legally prevent any further action to shut down the centers as the case proceeds to trial. A temporary restraining order, briefly pausing the shutdowns, was issued earlier this month.

Job Corps is a federal program that has set up vocational schools across the country. Students who attend the schools often have a background of living homeless or in the foster care system, concentrated poverty or abusive living situations. At the schools, called Job Corps Centers, students receive career and skills training for a variety of jobs including masonry, HVAC, nurse assisting and welding, among others.

In May, the Labor Sec. Lori Chavez-DeRemer announced a “pause” in operations at Job Corps Centers after notifying centers across the country that they needed to shut down operations and begin moving students out.

The “pause” was apparently a rhetorical obfuscation meant to conceal the fact that the labor department was in violation of U.S. law. The department does not have the legal authority to unilaterally eliminate a congressionally mandated program, Carter wrote. And in the event such authority is granted, federal law prescribes a set of steps the labor department must follow before shutting them down, which it did not follow.

“Defendants claim that they have not closed the Private Job Corps Centers, but have simply paused operations by terminating their contracts with those centers… But 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,” wrote the judge.

Carter’s order came 10 days after he heard oral arguments from both parties. Referencing this hearing in his order, he points out that labor department attorneys conceded the agency does not have the authority to terminate the program; that “absent an injunction, thousands of abused children and/or young people will be kicked off Job Corps campuses, rendering them homeless instantly because they have nowhere else to go;” and that the department has no plans for the funding Congress has appropriated for the program.

The Job Corps program was created through the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. It has provided education for millions of impoverished young people. In 2025, approximately 25,000 students were enrolled in Job Corps Centers across the country.

There were approximately 100 students enrolled at the Milwaukee Jobs Corps Center, 6665 N. 60th St., when the notice to shut down arrived.

The decision to close them has drawn widespread rebuke from the public and bipartisan criticism from elected officials. Milwaukee leaders held a press conference earlier this month to lambast President Donald Trump‘s administration for the move.

In his brief, blistering order Carter appeared to question the logic of shutting down the Job Corps Program.

“Although older generations frequently bemoan the lack of determination and resilience in American youth, the students in the Job Corps program rebut this notion,” Carter wrote. “The participants are all poor, and many resided in homeless shelters, were placed in foster care, or suffered physical, sexual, or emotional abuse. Despite these obstacles, the participants have dedicated themselves to furthering their education with the hope that their efforts will lead to employment.”

Supreme Court Complicates Job Corps Order

Following Carter’s order, the U.S. Supreme Court potentially complicated its enforcement when it reached a decision in an unrelated case that effectively banned federal judges from issuing nationwide injunctions, called “universal injunctions.”

Carter’s order includes a nationwide injunction. Still, a majority of Job Corps Centers are plaintiffs in the lawsuit, so the order would likely still apply to them as plaintiffs in the case. How that would affect centers in Wisconsin is not clear.

Carter’s order actually includes a discussion of nationwide injunctions and their application, pointing to previous lower court rulings finding that injunctions should be tailored to provide relief based upon the “extent of the violation established, not the geographic location.” The Job Corps program is a national program and 99 of 123 centers are represented by the plaintiffs.

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