A federal judge put an indefinite hold on the White House’s new reductions in the federal workforce, saying Tuesday that President Trump’s team appeared to be violating the law.
Judge Susan Illston had previously issued a restraining order imposing a temporary ban, and she converted that to a more lasting injunction.
She barred the government from issuing new notices or enforcing ones it already sent out since Oct. 1.
Mr. Trump had attempted the reductions during the ongoing government shutdown, saying the workers were ones Democrats wanted and so they would feel the pain.
Judge Illston, a Clinton appointee to the court in California, had questioned those motives and said the way the reductions were carried out was too chaotic to withstand scrutiny.
The ruling is a victory for federal workers’ unions that had sued to head off the reductions.
“President Trump is using the government shutdown as a pretense to illegally fire thousands of federal workers — specifically those employees carrying out programs and policies that the administration finds objectionable,” said Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees.
Roughly 4,000 employees were targeted before Judge Illston’s initial blockade.
Government lawyers had said the layoff decisions were being made by the departments themselves.
But the labor unions — the AFGE and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — said the directions were coming from the White House, which was bent on political retribution against Democrats for their role in orchestrating the shutdown.
“These are largely people that the Democrats want. Many of them will be fired,” Mr. Trump said ahead of the layoffs.
Democrats orchestrated the shutdown as they demanded any funding to keep the government open also extend pandemic-era Obamacare subsidies and roll back other health coverage changes imposed by the GOP’s budget law this summer.
Republicans have insisted that no new issues be added to the bills to reopen the government.
