Trump HHS Fails to Wipe Away Injunction in Workforce Firing Row

Firings at US Department of Health and Human Services subagencies remain on pause following the Trump administration’s failure to overturn a federal court injunction.

The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled against the Trump administration Wednesday, effectively barring the federal government from issuing further reduction-in-workforce notices to employees of a handful of HHS subagencies.

The decision is in response to the Trump administration’s appeal of a lower court’s preliminary injunction halting the HHS from carrying out sweeping cuts and restructuring while the case plays out.

It’s the latest development in a legal battle between the Trump administration and 19 states and the District of Columbia over the HHS’ announcement that it would reduce its workforce by about 10,000 employees. In suing the government, the states argued that its actions were arbitrary, capricious, and unsupported by the evidence.

Judge Melissa R. DuBose of the US District Court for the District of Rhode Island issued an injunction halting the reorganization, later clarifying that her decision applied to parts of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Office of Head Start and regional employees, the Center for Tobacco Products, and the HHS Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation’s Division of Data and Technical Analysis.

The three-judge panel for the First Circuit said in its ruling the federal government bore “the burden of justifying the extraordinary relief” of swatting down the lower court’s injunction, though failed to do so.

The panel is made up of judges Lara Montecalvo, Julie Rikelman, and Seth Aframe.

The case is New York v. Kennedy, 1st Cir., No. 25-01780, order 9/17/25 .