By Daniel Wiessner
(Reuters) -The administration of President Donald Trump was hit with a lawsuit on Tuesday seeking to block it from eliminating Job Corps, the largest U.S. job training program for low-income youth.
A trade group representing contractors that operate Job Corps centers and some of its members claim the U.S. Department of Labor is violating federal law and its own regulations by abruptly shuttering the program, a plan the agency announced last week. The lawsuit was filed in Manhattan federal court.
Job Corps was created by Congress in 1964 and allows 16-to-24-year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds to obtain high school diplomas or an equivalent, vocational certificates and licenses and on-the-job training. The program currently serves about 25,000 people at 120 Job Corps centers run by contractors.
The Labor Department in announcing the end of the program said it was not cost effective, had a low graduation rate and was not placing participants in stable jobs. The department also said there had been thousands of instances of violence, drug use and security breaches at Job Corps centers.
The National Job Corps Association and other plaintiffs in Tuesday’s lawsuit said the Labor Department does not have the power to dismantle a program established and funded by Congress.
“Shuttering Job Corps will have disastrous, irreparable consequences, including displacing tens of thousands of vulnerable young people [and] destroying companies that have long operated Job Corps centers in reliance on the Government’s support for the program,” they said.
The Labor Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Shuttering Job Corps is a small piece of a broader effort by Trump, a Republican, and his appointees to drastically shrink the federal bureaucracy, including by getting rid of some offices and agencies altogether.
But the lawsuit filed on Tuesday said Congress in creating Job Corps also limited the Labor Department’s ability to shut down the program. Federal law, for example, allows the department to close individual Job Corps centers only after seeking public comment and notifying local members of Congress, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit seeks to block the Labor Department from closing Job Corps centers and otherwise eliminating the program. The plaintiffs said they would seek an order requiring the program to continue pending the outcome of the lawsuit.
(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New YorkEditing by Marguerita Choy)
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