Trump’s Shutdown-Linked Layoffs Paused by California Judge (3)

A federal judge in California froze the Trump administration’s latest round of layoffs, saying the move is likely “illegal and in excess of authority.”

“It’s really ready, fire, aim on most of these programs,” Judge Susan Illston of the US District Court for the Northern District of California said at a hearing in San Francisco on Wednesday. “It’s a human cost that cannot be tolerated.”

She issued a temporary restraining order, effective immediately, requested by a coalition of federal worker unions. Her order would block terminations nationwide that were started last week.

The Trump administration fired more than 4,100 workers at nearly half a dozen agencies last Friday. About three-quarters of those who got termination notices worked at the departments of Health and Human Services and Treasury.

Illston, a Clinton appointee who paused mass layoffs in a separate case earlier this year, criticized a Department of Justice attorney for attempting to argue only about jurisdictional issues Wednesday and not the legal merits of the case.

“You’re not going to get to the merits with me today because the merits are just so troublesome,” Illston said.

The latest set of terminations marked an escalation for the Trump administration. After insisting that earlier reductions were aimed at cutting waste, President Donald Trump said that another round of layoffs slated for this week would target “egregious socialist, semi-communist” programs backed by Democrats.

“We’re not closing up Republican programs, because we think they work,” Trump told reporters.

Trump signed an order Wednesday ending the federal hiring freeze that had been in place since the start of his second term, requiring agencies to submit staffing plans for approval with the Office of Personnel Management and Office of Management and Budget.

More than 200,000 workers have left the federal government—the nation’s largest single employer—since Trump took office, according to the Partnership for Public Service.

Lawyers for the Trump administration limited their arguments to procedural matters. DOJ attorney Elizabeth Hedges said the case should be routed to the Merit Systems Protection Board, an argument that’s been rejected in the past, and claimed that an injunction was premature because the reductions-in-force haven’t fully taken effect.

Any order to reinstate the newly fired workers by Illston—an aggressive gatekeeper who often sides with federal unions—could be short-lived. In May, Illston issued a widespread freeze on Trump’s workforce cuts, which was upheld by the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit but later reversed by the US Supreme Court.

The plaintiffs, a collection of government unions, say the administration exceeded its legal authority and violated the Antideficiency Act. They also say the administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act because its stated reason—the shutdown—is both arbitrary and irrelevant.

The case is AFGE v OMB, N.D. Cal., No. 3:25-cv-08302, 10/15/25.