A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Thursday refused to suspend the massive firings of federal employees ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump as part of his efforts to dismantle the government's bureaucracy.
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On Thursday, February 27, federal judge William Alsup issued a temporary restraining order against the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which last month ordered federal agencies to identify employees on “probationary status” and “promptly determine whether they should be retained.
In line with this decision, several federal agencies began laying off employees.
William Alsup emphasized that the Office of Personnel Management has no authority to hire and fire employees of another agency.
He can hire his own employees, yes. He can fire them. But he cannot order or instruct some other agency to do it
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In January 2025, Trump signed an executive order to reduce government staff and give more power to the new Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE), which reports to Musk.
Trump's actions include the Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) “deferred retirement” program, which offered federal employees severance pay for leaving their jobs.
The White House estimates that about 75,000 federal employees, or 3% of the total, have benefited from this program, which has been the subject of other lawsuits.
Last week, another federal judge in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., rejected a request by labor unions to temporarily block federal employee layoffs and other actions against government employees.
San Francisco Judge Alsup issued the order following a lawsuit filed by unions and nonprofits that said OPM does not have the authority to fire employees.
On the other hand, government lawyers argued that OPM was not ordering dismissals - it was asking agencies to review and determine whether probationary employees were fit to continue working.