A federal judge in Manhattan Wednesday granted a preliminary injunction barring the Trump administration — at least for now — from continuing its effort to shut down Job Corps, the nation’s largest job training program for low-income young adults which has two training centers in Maine.
“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,” U.S. District Judge Andrew Carter wrote.
The ruling gives temporary clarity for Maine’s own training centers: Loring Job Corps in Limestone and Penobscot Job Corps in Bangor, whose fates have hung in the balance of the court after the U.S. Department of Labor issued an order on May 29 to pause operations at 99 of 121 training centers in the U.S.
Shortly after that order on June 3, the National Job Corps Association, along with several contractors that operate Job Corps facilities, filed a lawsuit against the Department of Labor in the Southern District of New York. The NJCA is a trade organization that represents every Job Corps training center in the U.S.
Carter granted a temporary restraining order against the Department of Labor on June 4 and extended that order following a hearing last Wednesday. Now, after Wednesday’s ruling, Job Corps centers nationally will remain open at least until a trial is complete.
But that doesn’t mean things are back to normal at Maine’s Job Corps locations, which have more than 500 current enrollees and 270 employees.
Most of the students at Loring Job Corps had already gone home by the time Carter issued the temporary restraining order, leaving the center operational, but with a skeleton group of learners.
Job Corps serves more than 25,000 students aged 16 to 24 annually and offers training in 10 wide-ranging industries, from health care to homeland security, according to the program’s website.
Those opposed to Job Corps closures fear they will push a number of residential students back into homelessness and exacerbate unemployment.
A trial date has yet to be set.
