Judge Blocks Trump’s Layoffs Amid Shutdown: “You Can’t Do That in Nation of Laws”

A federal judge in California has hit pause on President Donald Trump’s plan to lay off thousands of federal workers during the ongoing partial government shutdown, calling the move politically charged and legally dubious.

US District Judge Susan Illston, ruling from San Francisco on Wednesday, granted two unions’ request to temporarily block layoffs across more than 30 federal agencies. The decision comes as the shutdown entered its 15th day, with the administration openly admitting the cuts were part of a broader strategy to pressure Democrats.

White House Budget Director Russell Vought had told The Charlie Kirk Show earlier that more than 10,000 federal employees could lose their jobs, and that “Democrat agencies” would be the main target. Illston didn’t take that lightly.

“You can’t do that in a nation of laws. And we have laws here, and the things that are being articulated here are not within the law,”
— Judge Susan Illston

Illston, an appointee of Bill Clinton, said the administration was effectively weaponizing the shutdown to push through an ideological downsizing of government, something she described as careless and harmful.

“It’s very much ready, fire, aim on most of these programs, and it has a human cost,” she said. “It’s a human cost that cannot be tolerated.”

The unions, the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, argued that layoffs aren’t “essential services” that can legally continue during a funding lapse. Most federal employees are already furloughed without pay.

A Justice Department lawyer, Elizabeth Hedges, admitted she wasn’t ready to answer the judge’s legal concerns, insisting the unions should first take their complaints to a federal labor board.

Meanwhile, federal agencies had already begun issuing pink slips last Friday. Around 4,100 workers at eight agencies have received notices, according to a court filing.

The administration, while continuing to pay the military and fund immigration crackdowns, has been cutting jobs in health and education, including special education and after-school programs. Trump himself boasted that the targeted programs were Democratic favorites and that “they’re never going to come back, in many cases.”

On Capitol Hill, negotiations remain frozen. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has vowed not to negotiate until Democrats “pause” their healthcare demands. Democrats, for their part, are insisting that any deal to reopen the government include extended healthcare subsidies and a reversal of Medicaid cuts folded into Trump’s tax and spending bill earlier this year.

Johnson even predicted the standoff could become the longest shutdown in US history.