SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from laying off workers during the government shutdown, saying the cuts appeared to be politically motivated and carried out without much thought.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco repeatedly pressed the acting U.S. attorney to explain the government’s rationale for the more than 4,100 layoff notices sent Friday, even though furloughed workers don’t have access to their work email and there are no human resources specialists to assist them with next steps.
“In most of these programs, it’s very ready, ready to fire, targeted, and it has a human cost,” she said. “It is a human cost that cannot be tolerated.”
She granted an injunction to block the job cuts, saying she believed the evidence would ultimately show the cuts were unlawful and beyond authority.
Reached for comment, the White House referred The Associated Press to the Office of Management and Budget. The Budget Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The American Federation of Government Employees and other federal unions had asked Illston to stop the government from issuing recent layoff notices and implementing layoffs that had already been sent out. The unions said the layoffs were an abuse of power aimed at punishing workers and putting pressure on Congress.
“The president appears to believe his government shutdown is distracting people from his administration’s harmful and lawless actions, but the American people are holding him accountable, including in the courts,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of legal organization Democracy Forward. “Our public servants do the work of the people, and gambling with their livelihood is cruel and unlawful and poses a threat to everyone in our nation.”
Illston’s order came as the shutdown, which began Oct. 1, entered its third week.
Democratic lawmakers are demanding that any deal to reopen the federal government take into account their health needs. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson predicted the shutdown could become the longest in history and said he “will not negotiate with Democrats” until they pause on those demands and reopen.
Democrats have called for health care subsidies, first introduced in 2021 and extended a year later, to be extended again. They also want any federal funding bill to reverse the Medicaid cuts in Trump’s major tax relief and spending cuts bill passed this summer.
The Trump administration is paying off the military and continuing its crackdown on immigration while cutting jobs in health care and education, including in special education and after-school programs. Trump said programs favored by Democrats are being targeted and “in many cases they will never come back.”
In a court filing, the administration said it planned to lay off more than 4,100 employees across eight agencies.
In a similar case, Illston had prevented the government from implementing much of its plans to reduce the number of federal employees. However, the Supreme Court said the government could continue to lay off workers while the lawsuit was pending.
The unions say the layoff notices are an illegal attempt at political pressure and retaliation and are based on the false assumption that a transient funding shortfall will negate congressional approval of agency programs.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Hedges said in court Wednesday that the district court does not have jurisdiction to hear federal employment decisions. When pressed by the judge, Hedges said she was not prepared to discuss the merits of the case, only the reasons why an injunction should not be issued.
Illston was nominated to the bench by former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the federal government shutdown at https://apnews.com/hub/Government-shutdown.
