Updated October 15, 2025 at 2:52 PM MDT
With the federal government shutdown now 2 weeks old and counting, a federal judge in San Francisco temporarily halted the latest wave of layoffs by the Trump administration.
In a hearing on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said she believed the plaintiffs in the case have demonstrated that what the administration has done — using the lapse in government spending to implement layoffs — is "both illegal and in excess of authority and is arbitrary and capricious."
The lawsuit was brought by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which together represent more than 800,000 federal workers.
In a brief filed with the court Tuesday, the unions accuse the Trump administration of "using federal employees as pawns to impose political pressure on the Administration's perceived opponents in Congress."
"The harm is now," the plaintiffs' attorney Danielle Leonard told the court on Wednesday, describing the emotional trauma that federal employees are enduring.
Illston granted the unions' request for a temporary restraining order to pause the implementation of layoffs already underway and to block any additional layoff notices from being sent out at more than 30 agencies where the unions represent employees.
The Trump administration's attorney, Elizabeth Hedges, said she had not prepared to defend the merits of the government's actions. Instead, she argued that the court lacks jurisdiction to hear the case and that the plaintiffs had not shown that they would suffer "irreparable harm" without a temporary restraining order.
Illston appeared surprised and somewhat perplexed by the decision not to address the merits of the case.
In a brief filed with the court earlier, government attorneys argued any pause would be inappropriate.
"The President, through [the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB)], has determined that agencies should operate more efficiently and has directed them to consider steps to optimize their workforces in light of the ongoing lapse in appropriations," attorneys for the administration wrote in their brief to the court. "A TRO would prevent agencies from taking steps to implement this policy priority."
In recent days, the Trump administration has commenced a new round of layoffs, known as reductions in force, or RIFs. On Friday, at least seven different agencies sent RIF notices to more than 4,000 federal employees, according to a status update from Stephen Billy, a senior adviser to OMB. Noting that the situation is "fluid and rapidly evolving," Billy cautioned that the numbers could change.
On Tuesday, the Trump administration provided a new status update with a slightly lower count, but again emphasized that "agencies are continually finalizing their RIF plans."
Trump says layoffs affect "Democrat-sponsored programs"
The lawsuit was originally filed in response to a memo issued by OMB a week before the shutdown. It urged agencies to use the lapse in funding as an opportunity to consider laying off employees who work on programs and activities not consistent with President Trump's priorities.
In the days since, Trump has blamed Democrats for the shutdown and claimed that his administration had no choice but to permanently cut some federal jobs due to the lapse in congressional appropriations, a radical departure from past shutdowns in which the government has only temporarily furloughed employees.
Trump has simultaneously called the shutdown an "unprecedented opportunity" to reshape the government.
"We're ending some programs that we don't want. They happen to be Democrat-sponsored programs, but we're ending some programs that we never wanted and we're probably not going to allow them to come back," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday. "I think [Democrats] made a mistake. I think they made a big mistake."
The latest RIFs target the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services at the Department of Education; the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity at the Department of Housing and Urban Development; the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the Department of Energy; as well as parts of the Internal Revenue Service, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), among other agencies.
More than half of the 1,300 CDC employees who received layoff notices on Friday subsequently had those notices reversed over the weekend, according to AFGE. In a declaration filed with the court on Tuesday, Thomas Nagy, an official at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which includes the CDC, confirmed that due to "data discrepancies and processing errors," RIF notices were erroneously issued to nearly 800 HHS employees.
In another court filing, Yolanda Jacobs, president of AFGE Local 2883, wrote that human resources staff at the CDC were directed to issue layoff notices to themselves. After working through the weekend to rescind RIF notices that were sent out in error, those HR staff lost access to their work email accounts and work computers.
In court on Wednesday, Illston noted the errors and said it appeared that actions were being taken without sufficient thought.
"It's ready, fire, aim," the judge said, adding that such an approach comes with a human cost "that cannot be tolerated."
Unions: Trump cannot use shutdown to cut programs
The federal employee unions argue in their complaint that OMB and its director, Russell Vought, take the "legally unsupportable position" that the lapse in appropriations eliminates federal agencies' legal requirements to carry out programs Congress had previously funded.
The unions allege the memo issued by OMB before the shutdown unlawfully directs agencies to disregard their own authorizing statutes.
Illston appeared to agree with the unions.
"Overturning agency mandates Congress has put in place — they can't do that," she said.
The unions also take issue with guidance the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) subsequently put out, which informs agencies that employees needed to implement RIFs could be directed to work during the shutdown. The unions say this is a violation of the Antideficiency Act, the law that bars federal agencies from spending money during a shutdown, with only narrow exceptions including work that involves "the safety of human life or the protection of property."
"Administration of a RIF is in no way necessary to protect life or property from imminent harm," the complaint states.
Trump administration says the court lacks jurisdiction
The lawsuit originally named OMB and OPM, along with their directors, as defendants. It was later amended to include more than 30 federal agencies.
In its response to the complaint filed Friday, the Trump administration had urged the court to reject the unions' demands for a temporary restraining order, arguing that the court lacks jurisdiction to hear a case involving federal employment issues. The government points out that Congress created a federal agency, the Merit Systems Protection Board, to handle such matters, although its independence has been compromised under the current administration. It is also almost entirely shut down at the moment.
Attorneys for the government further argued that agencies were making decisions to lay off employees in accordance with proper procedures, noting that 26 agencies named as defendants in the lawsuit had yet to announce RIFs.
In court on Wednesday, the government attorney Hedges cited that lack of action as a reason the court should not issue a blanket pause.
The plaintiffs' attorney Leonard countered that, based on Trump's own statements, it was clear that layoff decisions have, in fact, been made and planning has been underway.
"RIF notices don't happen in an instant," Leonard told the judge. "The work is being done to prepare RIF notices at agencies probably as we speak, without being paid, in violation of the law."
For Judge Illston, another chance to weigh in on federal layoffs
This is the second case involving the Trump administration's mass layoffs that Illston is presiding over this year. In May, the Clinton-appointed judge indefinitely paused Trump's sweeping overhaul of the government, finding that the president had failed to obtain authorization from "his co-equal branch and partner, the Congress," as required by law.
"Agencies may not conduct large-scale reorganizations and reductions in force in blatant disregard of Congress's mandates, and a President may not initiate large-scale executive branch reorganization without partnering with Congress," Illston wrote in her decision.
The Trump administration appealed the ruling, eventually asking the Supreme Court to weigh in. In a decision issued on its shadow docket, the Supreme Court lifted Illston's order, allowing the Trump administration to resume layoffs while the lower courts consider whether the RIFs being carried out by agencies are lawful.
Subsequently some agencies, including those within HHS, finalized RIFs that had already been announced. But many others said they would not be making further staffing cuts given the large number of federal employees who resigned or retired this year. In fact, some agencies have since hired people back.
Although the Trump administration has characterized the latest round of layoffs as a consequence of the shutdown, many federal employees have told NPR they believe the layoffs are merely a continuation of the president's efforts to slash the federal government — an effort that has been well underway since January.
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