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A federal judge on Friday temporarily halted the Trump administration’s plan to implement mass workforce reductions and reorganizations across 21 federal agencies, marking a major legal roadblock to President Trump’s second-term initiative to downsize the federal government.
In a sharply worded ruling, Judge Susan Illston of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted a temporary restraining order that suspends the so-called Workforce Optimization Initiative led by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a new executive agency created earlier this year. The order also blocks related directives issued by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
“The President has the authority to seek changes to executive branch agencies, but he must do so in lawful ways…with the cooperation of the legislative branch,” Judge Illston wrote. “Nothing prevents the President from requesting this cooperation—as he did in his prior term of office.”
The ruling applies to departments and agencies named in the executive order and associated memoranda, including HUD, Interior, Transportation, OMB, OPM, and DOGE itself. These agencies had been instructed to implement reductions-in-force (RIFs) and structural changes without congressional input, prompting a lawsuit by a coalition of unions, local governments, and nonprofit organizations.
Judge Illston, a Clinton appointee, said the administration had overstepped its legal bounds, noting that “DOGE has no statutory authority whatsoever,” and that neither OPM nor OMB has the legal power to unilaterally initiate such broad reorganizations or layoffs.
“Such action is far outside the bounds of any authority that Congress vested in OPM or OMB,” the judge wrote.
The White House has not disclosed how many federal employees have already been affected by RIFs initiated since Trump returned to office in January. The administration attempted to dismiss the lawsuit by arguing it was filed too late—nearly three months after the Executive Order was signed. But Judge Illston rejected that reasoning.
“Defendants cannot have it both ways,” she wrote. “The Court finds that plaintiffs reasonably waited to gather what information they could about the harm they may suffer.”
Plaintiffs in the case celebrated the ruling as a necessary safeguard against what they described as a “chaotic and harmful” effort to dismantle core government services.
“The Trump administration’s unlawful attempt to reorganize the federal government has thrown agencies into chaos,” the coalition said in a joint statement. “We are gratified by the court’s decision today to pause these harmful actions while our case proceeds.”
A hearing to consider the longer-term fate of the administration’s plan is scheduled for May 22. The White House has not yet responded to requests for comment.
