Unions, Nonprofits and Local Governments Sue to Block USDA's Move of Washington-Area Staff to Five Regional Hubs

A Reassignment Letter That Only Unlocks a Different Form

To leave a federal job in Washington without going through a formal layoff, an employee first has to say yes to leaving. That is the quiet mechanism at the center of a new lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture. USDA sent relocation letters to 725 employees and reports that 64% accepted^[7]. But several of those employees say the "accept" button was also the only door to the form for requesting a hardship or medical exemption — so clicking it could mean "I'm moving" or just as easily "I'm trying to stay"^[7].

That single number is now doing a lot of work in a legal fight that landed in federal court in San Francisco on September 8, 2026. A coalition of federal employee unions, nonprofit groups and local governments sued USDA, asking a judge to freeze the department's plan to move thousands of Washington-area jobs to five cities around the country^[1][3]. Two days later, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria told the lawyers in his courtroom that he expected to issue what he called a "brief administrative stay" — a short pause meant to buy him time to learn the facts, not a ruling on who's right^[1].

What Nobody in This Case Disputes

Some of this story isn't contested at all. On July 24, 2025, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins signed a memo, known as SM 1078-015, laying out a plan to shrink USDA's Washington-area workforce from about 4,600 employees to no more than 2,000^[5][6]. Roughly 2,600 positions would move to five hub cities: Raleigh, North Carolina; Kansas City, Missouri; Indianapolis, Indiana; Fort Collins, Colorado; and Salt Lake City, Utah^[5].

The memo gives two reasons. First, money: federal salaries in the Washington area carry a 33.94% cost-of-living add-on, so the same job costs roughly a third more to staff there than in many other cities^[6]. Second, the buildings: USDA says its Washington offices have a backlog of deferred repairs and sit below the occupancy level federal rules require^[6]. The memo also states plainly that large workforce reductions are not the goal^[6].

This isn't even the first lawsuit over the plan. An earlier case, AFGE v. Trump, raised similar claims, but Judge Susan Illston declined to fold them into that broader suit. She said the USDA relocation claims were different enough to deserve their own case — and did not rule on whether the reorganization itself is legal^[10][13]. This new filing is that separate case.

The Legal Argument Underneath the Geography

Here's the mechanism the whole case turns on. Congress wrote specific rules for when a federal agency wants to cut its own staff, called a reduction in force, or RIF. A RIF requires written notice, and it ranks workers by seniority, veterans' status and performance before deciding who goes^[2][4]. Workers get bumping rights and rehire rights. It is slow, and it can be appealed.

The unions argue USDA reached the same destination — a much smaller Washington staff — without any of that process^[2][4]. Give someone weeks to move 1,000 miles or lose their job, the theory goes, and many will simply quit on their own. No RIF required, no appeal available. The plaintiffs — the American Federation of Government Employees, AFSCME, the National Federation of Federal Employees and the National Treasury Employees Union, joined by nonprofits and local governments — call this "a RIF in disguise," and argue USDA's own internal documents show that attrition was the intended outcome, not an accident^[2][3][10]. Their legal claims rest on the Administrative Procedure Act, which requires agencies to give a reasoned explanation for major decisions, and on the argument that a restructuring this large should have gone through Congress^[1][3].

USDA disputes that framing directly. Its memo states the plan is not meant to produce large workforce cuts^[6], and in court the department pointed to that 64% acceptance figure among the first 725 letter recipients as evidence the disruption is being overstated^[7]. Whether that number means what USDA says it means is exactly what the employees quoted by Government Executive dispute^[7].

Two Numbers, Two Stories

Depending on which side you read, the mood of the USDA workforce reads completely differently. USDA points to that 64% acceptance rate and calls it a sign most employees are willing to move^[7]. Union surveys of affected staff, meanwhile, put the share who say they would quit rather than relocate at around 80%^[7]. Neither number has been tested in court yet.

The gap between them isn't necessarily a sign someone is lying. Employees told Government Executive that some accepted just to keep a paycheck while job-hunting locally, or in case a court later blocked the whole plan^[7]. Others needed to click "accept" simply to reach the form for a hardship or medical exemption^[7]. A number can be accurate and still measure something other than what it's being used to prove.

Underneath both numbers sits a plainer fact neither side disputes: a formal layoff is expensive and legally risky for an agency, while a voluntary resignation costs the government almost nothing and can't be appealed the same way^[2][14]. That asymmetry gives any administration, regardless of party, a standing incentive to prefer a process that leads people to leave on their own. It's also exactly why the unions are testing, in court, whether that's what happened here^[10].

The Case for the Move, on Its Own Terms

Strip away the litigation, and USDA's argument is straightforward: an agency that regulates farms shouldn't have almost its entire staff living nowhere near one. Secretary Rollins described the plan as "moving our key services outside the beltway and into great American cities across the country^[5]." Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, whose state sits near one of the new hubs, praised USDA for "moving closer to the heartland," calling it the payoff of years of advocacy from farm-state lawmakers^[18].

That argument has real institutional backing behind it, not just politics. The 33.94% Washington locality premium is a genuine ongoing cost, not a one-time inconvenience — it means every stabilized position in the region costs more, year after year, than the same job would cost elsewhere^[6]. And decades of concentrating agriculture policy in one city, hub-plan supporters argue, produced expertise disconnected from the people it regulates^[16][18]. Farm-state communities set to receive the moved jobs stand to gain federal payrolls and institutional presence they don't currently have^[5][16].

Coverage of the fight splits largely along those same lines. Right-leaning outlets like The Federalist and Just the News framed the move as a campaign promise being delivered, describing employee resistance mainly as reluctance to leave Washington rather than engaging with the RIF-and-APA legal argument^[11][12]. Left-leaning and food-policy outlets such as Civil Eats led instead with the brain-drain risk and attrition claims, giving USDA's cost rationale comparatively little space^[8]. Wire coverage from Reuters took a third angle, framing the risk as one to research, trade certification and food-aid programs that other countries rely on^[19].

What Happens Between Now and December

For now, the practical stakes are running on a clock. Relocation deadlines under USDA's plan stretch out to around December 2026, and Chhabria signaled at the September 10 hearing that he wants the preliminary injunction question decided before those later deadlines arrive, rather than pausing everything at once^[1].

Whatever the court decides won't just settle this one relocation. A ruling that directed reassignment of this scale requires RIF procedures would reshape how every federal agency handles future reorganizations, not just USDA's^[2][4]. A ruling the other way would leave the tool available governmentwide. Meanwhile, the programs those 4,600 Washington employees run — food safety inspection, crop research, nutrition benefits, export certification — keep operating in the meantime, staffed by people who don't yet know which number, 64% or 80%, will turn out to describe them^[8][19].