A federal judge on Thursday allowed the Trump administration to proceed with the termination of nearly 800 United States Agency for International Development contractors, a key step in its broader effort to dismantle the agency.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, appointed by President Donald Trump, ruled that the contractors failed to prove their firings constituted irreparable harm, denying their request for emergency relief. The ruling follows Nichols’s earlier decision against a USAID union seeking to block the termination of more than 2,000 direct-hire employees.