US judges order White House to reinstate fired workers – DW – 03/14/2025

Two judges ordered US President Donald Trump’s administration on Thursday to reinstate thousands of probationary federal workers who lost their jobs as part of mass firings across multiple government agencies.

The federal judges, one in the US state of Maryland, the other in California, separately found legal problems with the way the mass terminations were carried out.

They both ordered the employees at least temporarily brought back on the job.

District Judge James Bredar in Maryland ruled that 18 of the agencies which had fired probationary employees en masse in recent weeks violated regulations governing the laying off of federal workers.

Bredar’s order to reinstate the employees applies to the Environmental Protection Agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the US Agency for International Development (USAID), among other agencies.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, has targeted these three agencies in particular. 

What grounds did the judges give?

While the administration argued that it dismissed each employee for performance or other individualized reasons, the judges said this was not the case.

Probationary workers are recently hired federal government employees who have less than one year of service in their current roles. They can also be longtime employees who started new roles in their respective organizations. 

Although probationary workers have fewer job protections than other government workers, they can only be fired for performance issues.

“The sheer number of employees that were terminated in a matter of days belies any argument that these terminations were due to the employees’ individual unsatisfactory performance or conduct,” wrote Bredar, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama.

His decision came just hours after District Judge William Alsup in California ordered the reinstatement of probationary employees terminated at six agencies. These included the Department of Defense, which was not covered by the Maryland decision, as well as the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Energy, Interior and Treasury.

Alsup, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, said the government was within its rights to reduce federal staff, but it had to do so properly and with justification.

“Congress itself has said you can have an agency do a reduction in force, if it’s done correctly under the law,” he said.

But Alsup ruled that the orders issued by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the government’s human resources agency, were unjustified.

“It is a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” Alsup said.

“That should not have been done in our country,” he added.

What will the White House do?

The rulings are the most significant blow yet to Trump and Musk, who have vowed to transform the federal workforce.

The came as the Trump administration had demanded that government agencies submit plans for a second wave of mass layoffs and budget cuts by Thursday.

The US government contends that the mass firings were lawful, arguing that individual agencies reviewed and determined whether employees on probation were fit for continued employment.

Responding to the California ruling, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said it was an attempt to encroach on the executive branch’s power to hire and fire employees. 

“The Trump Administration will immediately fight back against this absurd and unconstitutional order,” Leavitt said in a statement.

“The president has the authority to exercise the power of the entire executive branch. Singular district court judges cannot abuse the power of the entire judiciary to thwart the president’s agenda,” she said.

Leavitt’s comments echo statements from Trump’s first administration and his time out of office, during which he was convicted of 34 felonies, when he and his representatives often complained that rulings against them — particularly by Democrat-appointed judges —were unfair while rulings in their favor came from impartial judges.

This article was originally published on March 13, 2025. It updated on March 14 to incorporate the Maryland ruling.

Edited by: Sean Sinico