Judge extends order blocking Trump's planned mass layoffs

Washington: A judge handed workers across a broad swath of the federal government a reprieve on Thursday night, extending her pause on President Donald Trump's plans for vast layoffs until a case challenging them is resolved.

The order, issued by Judge Susan Illston of the US District Court for the Northern District of California, affects tens of thousands of employees at 22 agencies, including the departments of Housing and Urban Development, State, Treasury and Veterans Affairs. She also ordered the administration not to shut down offices and programs in those agencies, or move them between agencies, as Trump officials have sometimes done in their efforts to dismantle parts of the government.

Workers at those agencies have been bracing for announcements of layoffs for weeks, expecting them to come any day. The planned reorganization is a major component of Trump's goal to reshape the federal government.

But Illston said Trump was not following the laws set by Congress to address such reductions.

"Presidents may set policy priorities for the executive branch, and agency heads may implement them. This much is undisputed," the judge wrote in her order. "Agencies may not conduct large-scale reorganizations and reductions in force in blatant disregard of Congress' mandates, and a president may not initiate large-scale executive branch reorganization without partnering with Congress."

The reprieve is meant to freeze any cuts while Illston fully hears the case and renders a final decision, but it could be much briefer. The administration has already asked the Supreme Court to block the two-week pause that Illston initially issued this month. The court has yet to rule on the emergency application, and the government is expected to request that the justices overturn Illston's new ruling as well.

The administration argued in its emergency application that Illston's "far-reaching" pause would prevent "almost the entire executive branch from formulating and implementing plans to reduce the size of the federal workforce." It called the idea that the president lacked the authority to direct executive agencies on downsizing plans an "extraordinary view."

Still, among the raft of lawsuits challenging the cuts to the federal government's workforce and programs since Trump returned to the Oval Office, the one before Illston could have the broadest effect in preventing more mass firings because it covers so many agencies.

The unions and organizations behind the lawsuit argue that the president is not following the process Congress established for the federal government to reorganize itself. They say he does not have the authority to make such decisions on his own.

"The recklessness of this administration is having real-world consequences for every American, in red states and blue states, in towns small and large," said Skye Perryman, the president and CEO of the legal group Democracy Forward, which is a lead counsel for the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

Illston's order also addresses the federal employees who have already been placed on administrative leave and eventually fired through the government's layoff process, known as a reduction in force. The Department of Health and Human Services, for example, notified about 10,000 employees on April 1 that it was firing them. They have been on administrative leave since then. The department set June 2 as the date that many of the employees would stop getting paid and be officially separated from the government. Other employees faced a date in July.

To avoid the fire-rehire-refire saga that thousands of probationary employees have experienced since February as courts have ruled on their terminations, Illston's order calls for their reinstatement but also pauses that action, keeping them on paid administrative leave for the duration of the lawsuit.

"I'm concerned about the effect of all of this litigation on the lives of the people who are being affected and being hired and rehired and furloughed," Illston said Thursday during a hearing in her San Francisco courtroom. "And I think we need to preserve as much order as we can for those for those people."