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A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to stop firing federal employees during the ongoing government shutdown, calling the mass layoffs politically driven and unlawfully executed.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, sitting in San Francisco, issued a temporary restraining order blocking further job cuts, saying she believed the evidence would show the firings exceeded the administration’s authority.
“It’s very much ready, fire, aim on most of these programs, and it has a human cost,” Illston said during the hearing. “It’s a human cost that cannot be tolerated.”
The ruling came after federal agencies began sending layoff notices last week as part of President Donald Trump’s effort to shrink the federal workforce amid the partial government shutdown, now in its third week. The White House Office of Management and Budget, led by Russell Vought, said earlier Wednesday that more than 10,000 workers could be cut.
The American Federation of Government Employees and several other federal unions had sued to block the firings, arguing that the layoffs were an abuse of power meant to punish workers and pressure Congress to accept the president’s terms for reopening the government.
Judge Illston sided with the unions, saying the cuts appeared to be politically motivated and carried out without proper consideration of legality or impact.
The administration defended its actions, arguing that the court lacked jurisdiction over federal employment decisions.
The shutdown, which began Oct. 1, has become increasingly bitter. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said this week he “won’t negotiate” with Democrats until they drop demands tied to health care policy. Democrats, meanwhile, insist that any deal must include extensions of health care subsidies and reversals of Medicaid cuts passed in Trump’s summer spending bill.
While the Trump administration continues funding the military and immigration enforcement, it has targeted job cuts in health and education, including special education and after-school programs. “Programs favored by Democrats are being targeted and they’re never going to come back, in many cases,” Trump said earlier this week.
The White House initially projected about 4,100 layoffs across eight agencies, but officials have since indicated the total could grow.
Unions hailed Illston’s ruling as a victory for workers and a rebuke of the administration’s tactics. “The president cannot use federal employees as pawns in a political game,” one labor attorney said after the hearing.
