SF Judge Blocks Trump’s ‘Politically Motivated’ Layoffs of Federal Workers During Shutdown

A judge in San Francisco has ordered the Trump administration to temporarily pause the mass firing of federal employees amid the ongoing government shutdown.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston made clear at the beginning of Wednesday’s hearing that she was inclined to rule in favor of the federal worker unions suing to stop the firings because she said the layoffs seemed to be politically motivated and rushed.

“It is a situation where things are being done before they’re being thought through. It’s very much ‘ready, fire, aim,’ on most of these programs,” Illston said. “And it has a human cost, which is really why we’re here today. It’s a human cost that cannot be tolerated.”

The judge cited several public comments by President Donald Trump expressing his intention to target “Democrat programs.”

“It will be Democrat-oriented because we figure, you know, they started this thing … it will be a lot of people,” the president said about the layoffs on Oct. 10.

The ruling stops any layoffs that have already been announced and prevents the government from issuing reduction-in-force notices at any government agency where employees are represented by the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Collectively, the unions represent more than 800,000 workers.

Officials with AFGE Local 3172, which represents workers within the Social Security Administration across parts of California and Nevada, applauded the decision.

“We were glad that she was able to articulate that these decisions were made pretty flippantly and not based on the merits of the work that we’re doing here in Social Security,” said union representative Jacqueline Hopkins.

Hopkins agreed that the firing decisions appear to be politically motivated.

“You feel like a pawn in a game that, as employees, we shouldn’t have to feel like,” Hopkins said.

More than 4,100 workers have received RIF notices, according to a legal declaration by Stephen Billy, a senior advisor at the Office of Management and Budget.

Affected departments include the Department of Commerce, Department of Education, Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Department of Homeland Security and Department of the Treasury.

Hundreds more notices were also sent out by mistake last week.

The Department of Health and Human Services sent out more than 1,700 RIF notices on Oct. 10, but actually meant to send out less than 1,000, according to Thomas Nagy, a human resources official within the Department of Health and Human Services.

“Employees have been working since Oct. 10, 2025, to rescind the notices that had been issued in error,” Nagy said in a declaration to the court.

Department of Justice lawyers argued that the judge did not have jurisdiction in this case and that workers were not entitled to relief through the courts because the layoffs had a 60-day notice period — so the government’s actions would not technically harm workers until after that period had lapsed.

Danielle Leonard, an attorney for the unions, pushed back on the assertion that employees aren’t suffering any harm.

“They’re making people come in, work without pay, to fire their fellow employees, and then those employees are being fired in this context. It is traumatic, it is distressing,” said Leonard, alluding to reports that human resources workers at the Centers for Disease Control were called back into work to process layoffs, including members of their own team.

The defense declined to address the lawsuit’s core claim that the layoffs are illegal.

“I just want to be clear, you’re not making any statement concerning the government’s position on the merits of this, on whether these RIFs are legal or not?” Illston asked during the hearing.

“Not today, your honor,” Assistant United States Attorney Elizabeth Hedges said.