A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to lay off federal employees during the government shutdown on Wednesday evening, saying the moves appear to be a careless attempt to punish Democrats.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco said in her order that the unprecedented layoffs of federal employees during a government shutdown are likely unlawful and an overreach of power by President Donald Trump.
“It is also far from normal for an administration to fire line-level civilian employees during a government shutdown as a way to punish the opposing political party. But this is precisely what President Trump has announced he is doing,” wrote Judge Illston.
The federal government shut down on Oct. 1 after Senate Democrats refused to pass a continuing resolution to temporarily keep the government open after Republicans said they would get rid of Obamacare subsidies.
Since then, the Trump administration has blamed the shutdown on Democrats by playing messages at airports blaming the party for long security lines and delayed flights, and by threatening to lay off federal workers who have historically been furloughed.
Those layoffs, the White House warned, would likely “be in the thousands,” and according to recent court documents at least 4,000 employees across eight agencies have already been cut.
The American Federation of Government Employees, the country’s largest federal employees’ union, who filed the lawsuit against the White House, said that the layoffs are illegal and an attempt to politically pressure Democrats by claiming that lapses in federal funding gives the executive branch authority to oversee agency programs.
“If what plaintiffs allege is true, then the agencies’ actions in laying off thousands of public employees during a government shutdown – and in targeting for RIFs those programs that are perceived as favored by a particular political party – is the epitome of hasty, arbitrary, and capricious decision making,” wrote Judge Illston.
The judge also noted in her order that without immediate and temporary action from the court, federal workers “face loss of income, loss of healthcare, and possible relocation from their homes, all constituting irreparable harm.”
She also said that documents have shown that some of the cut employees are not aware that they have been terminated because they cannot access their work email and therefore cannot prepare for those terminations.