A Washington, D.C.-based federal judge on Friday temporarily halted the Trump administration’s planned mass layoffs at the Consumer Financial Protections Bureau (CFPB), shortly after an appeals court narrowed her earlier injunction.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson’s order temporarily blocks the terminations, which would have slashed the bureau’s workforce by roughly 90%, as she weighs whether the planned layoffs violate her earlier injunction.
Her order comes after plaintiffs in the case, which include the CFPB Employee Association and other labor entities, accused the government of violating her earlier injunction. The plaintiffs alleged these layoffs would take place on Friday evening.
Jackson noted on Friday that the agency was slated to carry out a reduction in force, or RIF, of roughly 1,400 employees — which would have left just several hundred in place.
Jackson said that within several days of an appeals order narrowing her initial injunction, CFPB employees were told the agency would do ‘exactly what it was told not to do,’ which was to carry out a RIF.
‘I’m willing to resolve it quickly, but I’m not going to let this RIF go forward until I have,’ she said during the Friday hearing, noting that she is ‘deeply concerned, given the scope and scope of action.’
Justice Department lawyers had sought to appeal Jackson’s order earlier this year, arguing in a filing that the injunction ‘improperly intrudes on the executive [branch’s] authority’ and goes ‘far beyond what is lawful.’
Jackson blocked the administration from moving forward with any layoffs or from cutting off employees’ access to computers at the bureau until she has time to hear from the officials in question later this month.
‘We’re not going to disperse’ more than 1,400 employees ‘into the universe… until we have determined that is lawful or not,’ Jackson said.
She proceeded to then set an April 28 hearing date to hear testimony from officials slated to carry out the RIF procedures.
The plaintiffs in the suit filed their legal challenge in D.C. district court in early February seeking a temporary restraining order after the Trump administration moved to severely downsize the bureau.
The court issued a preliminary injunction in late March, finding that the plaintiffs would likely succeed on the merits.
The order directed the government to ‘rehire all terminated employees, reinstate all terminated contracts, and refrain from engaging in reductions-in-force or attempting to stop work through any means.’
The Trump administration appealed the order shortly thereafter.
The Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit stayed Jackson’s order only in part, staying the provision dictating that the government must rehire the terminated employees.
The appeals court also stayed the provision of the order prohibiting the government from ‘terminating or issuing a notice of reduction’ to employees the administration deemed ‘to be unnecessary to the performance of defendant’s statutory duties.’