- Around 4,100 workers have been notified of layoffs during the closure.
- Two unions representing government employees filed a lawsuit.
- The judge says that explicit political motivation is not permitted by law.
A federal judge in California on Wednesday ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to halt mass layoffs of federal workers during a partial government shutdown while she considers union claims that the job cuts are illegal.
During a hearing in San Francisco, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston granted a request from two unions to block layoffs at more than 30 federal agencies while the case moves forward.
The decision is likely to be quickly appealed, but it offers respite for federal workers facing nearly a year-long pressure from the Trump administration to trim their ranks.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The White House said last week that it had initiated substantial layoffs across the U.S. government as Trump followed through on his threat to cut the federal workforce during the government shutdown, now in its 15th day. In an order Wednesday, Trump expanded an existing freeze on the hiring of new federal workers, with exceptions for military personnel and political appointees.
About 4,100 workers at eight agencies have been notified that they are being laid off so far, according to a court filing filed Tuesday by the administration.
Illston’s ruling came shortly after White House Budget Director Russell Vought said on “The Charlie Kirk Show” that more than 10,000 federal workers could lose their jobs because of the shutdown.
At the hearing, Illston cited a series of public statements from Trump and Vought that she said showed explicit political motivations for the layoffs, such as Trump saying the cuts would target “Democratic agencies.”
“You can’t do that in a nation of laws. And we have laws here, and the things that are articulated here are not within the law,” said Illston, an appointee of former Democratic President Bill Clinton.
Judge demands details about layoffs
Democracy Forward, a legal group that represents unions, said Illston made clear that the president’s attacks on federal workers were illegal.
“Our public officials do the people’s work, and playing with their livelihoods is cruel and illegal and a threat to everyone in our nation,” Skye Perryman, the group’s president and CEO, said in a statement.
Illston ordered the administration to provide by Friday an accounting of any “actual or imminent” layoffs and to describe the steps the agencies are taking to comply with his ruling.
A U.S. Justice Department attorney, Elizabeth Hedges, said at the hearing that she was not prepared to address Illston’s concerns about the legality of the firings. Instead, he argued that unions must bring their grievances to a federal labor board before they can file suit in court.
Illston disagreed and chastised the Justice Department for refusing to take a position on the unions’ legal claims.
“The ax is falling on the heads of employees across the country, and we’re not even prepared to address whether that’s legal,” he said.
The American Federation of Government Employees and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees say that implementing layoffs is not an essential service that can be performed during a disruption in government funding, and that the shutdown does not justify massive job cuts because most federal workers have been laid off without pay.
Trump’s Republicans have a majority in both chambers of Congress, but need at least seven Democratic votes to pass a funding bill in the Senate, where Democrats resist an extension of health insurance subsidies. Democrats have said they will not bow to Trump’s pressure tactics, and a new attempt to pass a spending bill failed on Wednesday.
