A federal judge in San Francisco has determined that the Trump administration likely violated the law by abruptly terminating thousands of probationary federal employees across multiple agencies, issuing a temporary restraining order to halt further firings in key departments. U.S. District Judge William Alsup’s ruling, delivered on February 27, marks a significant legal setback for the administration’s controversial workforce reduction efforts, which critics argue undermine government operations and sidestep statutory authority.
Alsup said he not have the authority to order the agencies to to reinstate the fired workers.
Judge Alsup’s order immediately suspends the termination of probationary employees—typically those in their first or second year of federal service—at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), National Park Service, Small Business Administration, Bureau of Land Management, National Science Foundation, and other agencies named in a lawsuit brought by a coalition of labor unions and civic groups. The plaintiffs argued that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) unlawfully directed agencies to carry out the firings despite lacking congressional authority to manage other agencies’ personnel decisions.
“The agency has no authority to tell any other agency in the U.S. government who it can hire and fire, period,” Alsup asserted during Thursday’s hearing.
A February 14 memo from OPM to human resource officers stated, “We have asked that you separate probationary employees that you have not identified as mission-critical no later than end of the day Monday, 2/17.”
However, Alsup dismissed the administration’s claim that this language constituted a mere request, noting the firings’ unprecedented scale and speed: “How could so much of the workforce be amputated suddenly overnight? It’s so irregular and widespread, so aberrant in the history of the country?”
During Tuesday’s congressional testimony, VA Chief Human Capital Officer Tracey Therit acknowledged under questioning that OPM had provided “direction” to terminate approximately 1,400 probationary employees at the VA.
While the restraining order applies only to agencies linked to the plaintiffs, Alsup urged the government to “do the right thing” by extending similar protections across the federal workforce.
Key points of the ruling include:
- Judge Alsup ordered the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to inform certain federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, that it had no authority to order the firings of probationary employees.
- The judge stated emphatically that “OPM does not have any authority whatsoever, under any statute in the history of the universe,” to hire or fire any employees but its own.
The lawsuit was filed by five labor unions and five nonprofit organizations, challenging the Trump administration’s efforts to significantly reduce the federal workforce. The plaintiffs argue that:
- OPM had no authority to terminate the jobs of probationary workers, who generally have less than a year on the job.
- The firings were based on false claims of poor performance by the workers.
OPM must notify affected agencies, including the Department of Defense (DoD), by February 28, that these directives are invalid. Compliance with this order will be closely monitored, particularly for agencies like the DoD, which had planned imminent layoffs of thousands of probationary workers.
Judge Alsup scheduled a follow-up hearing within two weeks to question OPM Acting Director Charles Ezell and agency leaders about their roles in the firings.
