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A federal judge in San Francisco has ordered the Trump administration to halt its firing of federal employees during the ongoing government shutdown, ruling the action illegal.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, appointed by President Clinton, sided with two labor unions representing federal workers and issued a restraining order blocking the government from issuing or enforcing reduction-in-force notices in agencies where the unions have members.
During a hearing Wednesday, Judge Illston criticized the administration’s approach as “ready, fire, aim,” emphasizing the intolerable human cost of the layoffs. She determined that President Trump and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought were improperly exploiting the shutdown, which entered its third week, to carry out mass terminations.
The American Federation of Government Employees and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees filed the lawsuit on September 30, citing Trump’s own statements and an OMB memo encouraging departments to pursue layoffs during the shutdown. The unions argued the White House was seeking political retribution against Democrats for their role in the shutdown. Trump had stated before the layoffs that “these are largely people that the Democrats want. Many of them will be fired.”
The administration had sent reduction-in-force notices to nearly 4,000 employees across seven departments: Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Homeland Security, and Treasury. While notices went to approximately 4,000 workers, the government said it intended to actually fire about 3,100. In one case, nearly 800 HHS employees received notices that the department didn’t actually want enforced, blaming “data discrepancies and processing errors.”
OMB Director Vought indicated the total number of layoffs during the shutdown could exceed 10,000 workers, stating the administration wants to be “very aggressive” in “shuttering the bureaucracy, not just the funding.” These firings represent part of a broader downsizing effort Trump initiated on his first day in office.
The government shutdown is also delaying important announcements, including the annual Social Security cost-of-living adjustment for tens of millions of beneficiaries, now postponed from Wednesday to October 24.
Republicans have proposed keeping the government open at last year’s funding levels while negotiating full-year spending bills, but Democrats have blocked this in the Senate with a filibuster. Democrats want the spending bill to include $1.5 trillion in health care policies, including pandemic-related Obamacare subsidies and reversing Medicaid changes from Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Read more: Judge temporarily blocks Trump administration’s federal layoffs during shutdown
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