SAN FRANCISCO— A federal judge blocked the Trump administration on Wednesday. dismissal of thousands of government employees based on the ongoing federal government shutdown, granting a request from California workers unions.
U.S. District Judge Susan Ilston issued a temporary restraining order after concluding that the unions will “ultimately demonstrate that what is being done here is both illegal, excessive, arbitrary and capricious.”
Illston criticized the Trump administration for failing to provide clear information about what cuts are actually taking place, for repeatedly changing descriptions and estimates of job cuts in court filings, and for failing – including during Wednesday's hearing in San Francisco – to articulate arguments for why such cuts are not a violation of federal law.
“The evidence suggests that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) took advantage of the interruption in government spending and government functioning to suggest that all bets were off, that the laws no longer applied to them,” Ilston said, but she said that was not the case.
She said the government had justified providing inaccurate data on the number of jobs being eliminated under “retrenchment” orders by calling it an “unsustainable situation”, which she did not find convincing.
“This is a situation where something is done before it is thought about. Most of these programs are almost ready, ready, targeted,” she said. “And that has a human cost, and that's why we're here today. It's a human cost that cannot be tolerated.”
Illston also cited a number of recent comments by President Trump and other members of his administration regarding the layoffs and their deliberate targeting of Democratic-backed programs and agencies, saying, “They appear to be politically motivated.”
The Trump administration acknowledged it had furloughed about 4,000 workers under the order, while Trump and other officials signaled more would be fired on Friday.
Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vaught said Wednesday on “The Charlie Kirk Show” that the number of job cuts “will likely end up increasing.” being north of 10,000” because the administration wants to be “very aggressive where we can be, shutting down the bureaucracy, not just the funding,” and the shutdown provided that opportunity.
Lawyers for the unions, led by the American Federation of Government Employees, said the numbers are unreliable and that they fear additional cuts to enforcement orders would lead to more layoffs, as administration officials have promised, unless the court steps in to block such action.
Illston, President Clinton's appointee, did just that.
It prohibited the Trump administration and its various agencies from “taking any action to issue any notice of reduction in the number of federal employees in any program, project or activity” involving union members “during or because of the federal government shutdown.”
She also prohibited the administration from “taking any further action to administer or implement” existing layoff notices involving union members.
Illston demanded that the administration provide a full report within two days of all existing or “imminent” force reduction orders that would be blocked by her order, as well as the specific number of federal jobs affected.
Elizabeth Hedges, a Trump administration lawyer, argued during the hearing that the order should not be issued for several procedural reasons, including because the alleged harm to federal employees from loss of jobs or benefits is not “irreparable” and could be resolved through other means, including civil litigation.
Additionally, she argued that federal employment claims should be litigated administratively rather than in district court; and that the redundancy orders provided for a 60-day notice period, meaning that the redundancies were not immediate and therefore a challenge to them was not yet “ripe” in legal terms.
However, Hedges did not discuss the merits of the case, that is, whether the cuts were in fact legal or not, which did not seem to suit Ilston.
“You don’t have an opinion about whether it’s okay for them to do what they do?” – asked Ilston.
“I'm not prepared to discuss this today, your honor,” Hedges said.
“Well, but this is happening. This ax is falling on the heads of employees all over the country, and you are not even prepared to answer the question of whether it is legal, even though that is what is being challenged in this proposal?” – Illston said.
“Correct,” Hedges said, reiterating that there are “threshold” arguments for why the case should not even be allowed to proceed to the merits stage.
Danielle Leonard, a labor lawyer, suggested the government's position was unjustified and in direct contradiction to the administration's public statements, including Trump's remarks on Tuesday that more cuts were expected on Friday.
“How do we know this? Because OMB and the president keep telling us and other members of the administration,” Leonard said.
Leonard said the harm from management's actions is clear and outlined in union documents that show how employees were sometimes left in the dark about their employment status because they lacked access to work lines of communication during the shutdown, or how others were called in to “work without pay to fire their co-workers” – only to then be fired themselves.
“There are several types of harm that are being done right now – emotional trauma. That's not my word, your honor, that's OMB Director Vought's word. Let's cause 'trauma' to federal workers,” Leonard said. “And that's exactly what they do. Trauma. The emotional distress of being laid off after an already exceptionally difficult year for federal employees.”
Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, which is one of the unions' advisers, praised Illston's decision in a statement after the hearing.
“Today's court filings make clear that the President's attack on federal employees—a move straight out of the Project 2025 playbook—is unlawful,” Perryman said. “Our public servants do the people's jobs, and playing games with their livelihoods is cruel and illegal and a threat to everyone in our country.”
Illston has asked both sides to confer at the most appropriate date, likely later this month, for a fuller hearing on whether she should grant a longer preliminary injunction in the case.
“It would be great to know the government's position on the merits of this case – and I'll be holding my breath until we find out,” Ilston said.
After the hearing, during a White House press conference, Trump said his administration was paying federal workers “we want to pay” while Vought was using the shutdown to fire employees seen as supporting Democratic causes.
“Russell Vought is really killing off a huge number of democratic projects—not just jobs,” Trump said.
