Judge blocks Trump's layoffs during shutdown, calling them illegal

A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from laying off federal workers during the ongoing government shutdown.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Wednesday granted a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration from laying off federal workers during the government shutdown, which has now stretched to two weeks.

Two unions sued the Trump administration last month ahead of the shutdown after the White House signaled a plan to lay off workers through "reductions in force" (RIFs) at federal agencies. At a hearing on Wednesday, a federal judge in the Northern District of California granted the unions' motion to issue a temporary restraining order preventing the layoffs, which began on Friday.

“The activities that are being undertaken here are contrary to the laws," U.S. District Judge Susan Yvonne Illston said. “You can’t do this in a nation of laws.”

Johnson: 'We’re barreling towards one of the longest shutdowns in American history'01:27Illston said that the Trump administration had "taken advantage of the lapse in government spending and government functioning to assume that all bets are off, the laws don’t apply to them anymore, and they can impose the structures that they like on the government situation that they don’t like."

Illston said that she believed the plaintiffs can demonstrate that the Trump administration's actions were illegal, in excess of authority and "arbitrary and capricious.”