Employees of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) hug each other as they queue outside the Mary E. Switzer Memorial Building, after it was reported that the Trump administration fired staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and at the Food and Drug Administration, as it embarked on its plan to cut 10,000 jobs at HHS, in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 1, 2025.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from sharply cutting jobs and reorganizing the structure of many major federal agencies.
The order issued late Thursday granted a preliminary injunction that pauses further reductions in force and “reorganization of the executive branch for the duration of the lawsuit.”
“Presidents may set policy priorities for the executive branch, and agency heads may implement them. This much is undisputed,” wrote Judge Susan Illston in her order in U.S. District Court for the District of Northern California.
“But Congress creates federal agencies, funds them, and gives them duties that — by statute — they must carry out,” Illston wrote.
“Agencies may not conduct large-scale reorganizations and reductions in force in blatant disregard of Congress’s mandates, and a President may not initiate large-scale executive branch reorganization without partnering with Congress.”
Illston’s injunction was issued in response to a lawsuit challenging the effects of a Feb. 11 executive order signed by President Donald Trump, which said it “commences a critical transformation of the Federal bureaucracy.” The order directed heads of federal agencies to prepare for large-scale reductions in force.
The suit was filed by a group of unions representing federal workers, as well as advocacy groups, and several cities, states and counties.
The Trump administration has already requested that the Supreme Court issue an emergency pause of Illston’s initial temporary restraining order blocking its reorganization efforts.
“That far-reaching order bars almost the entire Executive Branch from formulating and implementing plans to reduce the size of the federal workforce, and requires disclosure of sensitive and deliberative agency documents that are presumptively protected by executive privilege,” wrote U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer in the May 16 application to the high court.
“Neither Congress nor the Executive Branch has ever intended to make federal bureaucrats ‘a class with lifetime employment, whether there was work for them to do or not,'” Sauer wrote. “This Court should stay the district court’s order.”
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