A UNITED States federal judge in California has ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to halt mass layoffs during a partial government shutdown while she considers claims by unions that the job cuts are illegal.
During a hearing in San Francisco on Wednesday, US District Judge Susan Illston granted a request by two unions to block layoffs at more than 30 agencies pending further litigation.
Her ruling came shortly after White House Budget Director Russell Vought said on “The Charlie Kirk Show” that more than 10,000 federal workers could lose their jobs because of the shutdown, which entered its 15th day on Wednesday.
Illston at the hearing cited a series of public statements by Trump and Vought that she said showed explicit political motivations for the layoffs, such as Trump saying that cuts would target “Democrat agencies”.
“You can’t do that in a nation of laws. And we have laws here, and the things that are being articulated here are not within the law,” said Illston, an appointee of Democratic former President Bill Clinton, adding that the cuts were being carried out without much thought.
“It’s very much ready, fire, aim on most of these programs, and it has a human cost,” she said. “It’s a human cost that cannot be tolerated.”
Illston said she agreed with the unions that the administration was unlawfully using the lapse in government funding that began October 1 to carry out its agenda of downsizing the federal government.
A US Department of Justice lawyer, Elizabeth Hedges, said she was not prepared to address Illston’s concerns about the legality of the layoffs. She instead argued that the unions must bring their claims to a federal labour board before going to court.
The judge’s decision came after federal agencies on Friday started issuing layoff notices aimed at reducing the size of the federal government. The layoff notices are part of an effort by Trump’s Republican administration to exert more pressure on Democratic lawmakers as the government shutdown continues.
Democratic lawmakers are demanding that any deal to reopen the federal government address their healthcare demands. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson predicted the shutdown may become the longest in history, saying he “won’t negotiate” with Democrats until they hit pause on those demands and reopen.
Democrats have demanded that healthcare subsidies, first put in place in 2021 and extended a year later, be extended again. They also want any government funding bill to reverse the Medicaid cuts in Trump’s big tax breaks and spending cuts bill that was passed earlier this year.
About 4,100 workers at eight agencies have been notified that they are being laid off so far, according to a Tuesday court filing by the administration.
The Trump administration has been paying the military and pursuing its crackdown on immigration while slashing jobs in health and education, including in special education and after-school programmes. Trump said programmes favoured by Democrats are being targeted and “they’re never going to come back, in many cases.”
The American Federation of Government Employees and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees claim that implementing layoffs is not an essential service that can be performed during a lapse in government funding, and that the shutdown does not justify mass job cuts because most federal workers have been furloughed without pay.