A second federal judge has issued a ruling temporarily halting the mass termination of probationary federal workers by the Trump administration.
US District Judge James Bredar in Maryland ordered that employees across 18 federal agencies be reinstated, expanding on a similar ruling made earlier in the day by US District Judge William Alsup in California.
The rulings come in response to lawsuits filed by Democratic attorneys general from 19 states and Washington, DC, who argue that the administration violated labor laws by failing to provide required notice before executing the layoffs. Bredar’s decision, issued Thursday, pauses the dismissals until a hearing later this month, where the court will determine whether a longer suspension is warranted.
“The government conducted massive layoffs, but it gave no advance notice,” Bredar wrote in his decision. “On the record before the Court, this isn’t true. There were no individualized assessments of employees. They were all just fired. Collectively.”
While Bredar’s ruling reinstates employees at most affected agencies, he declined to extend protections to workers at the Department of Defense, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and the National Archives, citing a lower likelihood of legal success for those agencies.
The administration argues that the firings were lawful and conducted for individual performance reasons rather than as a coordinated workforce reduction. However, the judges found that the terminations appeared to be carried out en masse, potentially bypassing federal regulations that govern large-scale layoffs.
The White House swiftly criticized the rulings. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called them “absurd and unconstitutional,” asserting that “singular district court judges cannot abuse the power of the entire judiciary to thwart the president’s agenda.” The administration has already appealed Alsup’s ruling and is expected to challenge Bredar’s decision as well.
