Federal Worker Firings Partially Blocked by California Judge (2)

A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to pause the mass firings of some of the government’s newest employees as he prepares to rule on whether the memos underpinning the terminations are illegal.

Judge William Alsup of the US District Court for the Northern District of California said at a hearing Thursday that the Office of Personnel Management’s order directing agencies to fire probationary employees “is illegal, should be stopped, and rescinded” as it pertains to the handful of agencies involved in the case.

The judge listed the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the National Science Foundation among the agencies that are barred from engaging in layoffs ordered by OPM.

Alsup said he couldn’t order the Department of Defense to pause its plan to fire thousands of civilian employees on Friday because the agency isn’t a party to the case. But he ordered OPM to communicate his ruling to the DOD.

“Probationary employees are the lifeblood of our government, that’s how we renew ourselves,” Alsup said at the hearing in his San Francisco courtroom. “They are contributing to our country, they want to contribute to our country.”

He also condemned widespread reports of federal employees who say they were terminated for performance problems when they had just received glowing reviews from managers.

“That’s not right, that’s not how we do things in this country,” Alsup said.

Alsup said he plans to schedule a hearing where OPM acting director Charles Ezell must testify about the firing memos.

The decision is a setback for the Trump administration, which is trying to shrink the federal workforce. Federal agencies fired 31,000 people after Trump directed them to dismiss recent hires, according to Bloomberg Law’s analysis of news reports. The Trump administration aims to fire more workers in the coming weeks.

Lead union plaintiff Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, applauded the ruling, saying it “is an important initial victory for patriotic Americans across this country who were illegally fired from their jobs by an agency that had no authority to do so.”

OPM and the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California declined to comment.

Alsup’s ruling contrasts a pair of previous legal wins by the Trump administration in separate courts.

A federal judge in Washington declined to pause the firings in a Feb. 20 order, finding that the court lacked jurisdiction because employees should instead bring their claims before agency review boards meant to resolve federal labor disputes.

A Massachusetts federal judge on Feb. 12 also declined to stop the Trump administration’s offer to employees to quit voluntarily. The court said the unions didn’t have a “direct stake” in the issue.

Alsup, a Bill Clinton appointee, is no stranger to lawsuits against over Trump executive actions. In 2018, the judge temporarily blocked the first Trump administration from rescinding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program protecting the children of undocumented immigrants.

Altshuler Berzon LLP and State Democracy Defenders Fund represent the plaintiffs.

The case is Am. Fed. of Gov’t Emp. v. OPM, N.D. Cal., No. 3:25-cv-01780, 2/27/25.