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WASHINGTON (CN) — A group of students sued the Department of Labor on Wednesday over the Trump administration’s decision to shut down the Job Corps program and close centers across the country, warning that without the program, approximately 25,000 low-income youth will be put at risk.
Seven former Job Corps students filed a class action in D.C. federal court, urging Judge Dabney Friedrich to block the shutdown of the program’s 99 centers. Of the 25,000 people in Job Corps, they noted over 4,500 were homeless before joining and would likely lose housing again if the program ends. Their attorney, Adam Pulver of Public Citizen, called the closure “cruel and unlawful.”
Their attorney, Adam Pulver of Public Citizen, called the closure “cruel and unlawful,” in a statement announcing the litigation.
“As a result of the Department’s illegal actions, tens of thousands of young people, including our clients, will lose vital access to housing, health care, and the opportunity to build a more stable future for themselves and their families, “ Pulver said. “As directed by Congress, the Centers must be kept open and the program must be restored.”
The government began dismantling Job Corps in March by halting background checks for applicants, cutting internet services, ending most procurements and shutting down the Career Transition Readiness program.
On May 2, President Trump called Job Corps a “failed experiment to help America’s youth” in a funding proposal to Congress. Then, on May 29, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer announced plans to pause all 99 centers by June 30, citing a “startling number of serious incident reports and [an] in-depth fiscal analysis.”
The students argue that the “analysis” was in fact based on a flawed “Transparency Report” the Labor Department itself posted just weeks earlier, which claimed the Job Corps program had “been in a financial crisis for years.”
At the start of 2025, there were 99 Job Corps centers across the country, run by contractors with two-year contracts, that provided participants education and training, housing, a biweekly living allowance, and medical, dental and mental health services.
Beyond the 99, there are also 25 “Civilian Conservation Centers,” owned and operated by the Department of Agriculture, which will not be affected by Chavez-DeRemer’s decision.
Chavez-DeRemer’s decision was clearly unlawful under the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which created the program, and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014, which has governed it for the last 11 years, the students argue.
The students argue that the closure violates a 2014 law requiring the Labor Secretary to give advance notice, allow public comment, and follow strict criteria before shutting down any Job Corps center. These criteria include chronic underperformance, agreement with the Agriculture Secretary for USDA-run centers, difficulty delivering quality training, or evidence that closure would improve the program overall by focusing resources on higher performing centers.
They also point out that Congress recently appropriated $1.7 billion for Job Corps via the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2024, including $1.6 billion for operations through June 30 and $123 million for new or improved centers through 2027, signaling legislative intent to keep the program running.
Anaraia Cabrera, one of the seven plaintiffs, enrolled in the Turner Jobs Corps Center in Albany, Georgia, in December 2024 to get her high school diploma and develop job skills after the COVID-19 pandemic upended an initial attempt. Cabrera had just started the Job Corps’ Certified Nurse Assistant trade program when the entire program’s closure was announced.
On June 3, the Albany center’s director announced the students would have to leave the next week — the deadline has been delayed due to a temporary restraining order in a related lawsuit — and three days later, Cabrera was told her instructor had been terminated and thus she could not complete her nursing program.
“She does not know where she would live if she were forced to leave the center’s dorms, and would likely end up at a homeless shelter,” the students warn.
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