Judge pauses much of Trump administration’s massive downsizing of federal agencies

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The Trump administration must halt much of its dramatic downsizing of the federal workforce, a California judge has ordered.

Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco issued the emergency order in a lawsuit filed last week by labour unions and cities, one of multiple legal challenges to Republican President Donald Trump’s efforts to shrink the size of a federal government he calls bloated and expensive.

“The Court holds the President likely must request Congressional cooperation to order the changes he seeks, and thus issues a temporary restraining order to pause large-scale reductions in force in the meantime,” Illston wrote in her order.

The temporary restraining order directs numerous federal agencies to halt acting on the president’s workforce executive order signed in February and a subsequent memo issued by the Department of Government Efficiency and the Office of Personnel Management.

The order, which expires in 14 days, does not require departments to rehire people.

Plaintiffs asked that the effective date of any agency action be postponed and that departments stop implementing or enforcing the executive order, including taking any further action.

They limited their request to departments where dismantlement is already underway or poised to be underway, including at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which announced in March it will lay off 10,000 workers and centralise divisions.

Illston, who was nominated to the bench by former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, said at a hearing Friday the president has authority to seek changes in the executive branch departments and agencies created by Congress.

“But he must do so in lawful ways,” she said. “He must do so with the cooperation of Congress, the Constitution is structured that way.”

Trump has repeatedly said voters gave him a mandate to remake the federal government, and he tapped billionaire Elon Musk to lead the charge through DOGE.

Tens of thousands of federal workers have been fired, left their jobs via deferred resignation programmes or have been placed on leave as a result of Trump’s government-shrinking efforts.

There is no official figure for the job cuts, but at least 75,000 federal employees took deferred resignation, and thousands of probationary workers have already been let go.