A pair of federal judges have ordered President Donald Trump to reinstate thousands of probationary employees from various agencies.
According to Reuters, federal judges from California and Maryland made the order Thursday after the Trump administration and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) conducted mass firings to pare down the federal workforce.
Government agencies faced a Thursday deadline to submit plans to slash budgets and cut the workforce even further.
Baltimore U.S. District Judge James Bredar backed 20 Democratic states when they claimed that 18 of the agencies who recently fired the probationary employees had breached regulations around federal worker layoffs.
Reuters reported that Bredar, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, issued a restraining order to the Environmental Protection Agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, and the U.S. Agency for International Development, and others that had been affected by the mass firings.
The U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Treasury and Veterans Affairs are also included in the order.
Bredar disagreed with the Trump administration’s explanation that those who had been fired were underperforming. Because of this, the firings are now classed as a form of mass layoffs that require advance notice to the states who are obligated to provide assistance.
“The sheer number of employees that were terminated in a matter of days belies any argument that these terminations were due to the employees’ individual unsatisfactory performance or conduct,” Bredar wrote.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton in San Francisco also ordered the reinstatement of probationary employees not covered in Bredar’s decision, which includes the U.S. Department of Defense.
“It is a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” Alsup said after he had noted that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management lacked the power to mass fire federal workers.
In response to Alsup’s decision, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that the Trump administration would “immediately fight back.”
“The President has the authority to exercise the power of the entire executive branch — singular district court judges cannot abuse the power of the entire judiciary to thwart the President’s agenda,” Leavitt said.
