PHOENIX — Attorney General Kris Mayes today joined an amicus brief with attorneys general from 21 other states in support of a proposed class of plaintiffs challenging the unlawful termination of Job Corps, a national program that offers career training and housing to young Americans from low-income backgrounds.
"President Trump promised to lower costs for Arizonans. Instead he's firing young workers and literally evicting these young people from their homes. Many of them in Arizona have nowhere else to go," said Attorney General Mayes.
Last week, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued a preliminary injunction in favor of the plaintiffs challenging in National Job Corps Association et al. v. Department of Labor et al., noting in its opinion that the coalition of states had opposed the termination of the program. Today’s filing urges the court, weighing a motion brought by enrollees in the program, to affirm that an injunction should remain in place.
Job Corps has nearly 100 residential campuses across the country, and the Trump Administration’s effort to illegally terminate the program threatens to leave thousands of vulnerable young Americans homeless. The brief explains that “in the sixty years since Congress created Job Corps, millions of young Americans from low-income backgrounds have been served by the program’s unique combination of education, training, housing, healthcare and community.”
Unlawful termination of the program would impact tens of thousands of young Americans who are currently enrolled and housed at campuses in all fifty states. Around 300 students rely on employment from the Phoenix Job Corps program and more than half of them live for free in dorms at the campus on Third and Lincoln streets downtown.. More than 130 students at Acosta Job Corps Center in Tucson have been impacted. Reporting from AZ Family emphasizes that many of those impacted in Arizona "have no where else to go."
The program will also eliminate training options for workers in Arizona. One of the Arizona programs at risk the Home Builder Institute, where students were taught electrical, carpentry, plumbing, landscape and HVAC skills. The program was a student chapter of the Southern Arizona Home Builders Association, whose President stressed this would "exacerbate" skilled worker shortages if closed.
