On Thursday, a federal judge in the United States blocked the Trump administration’s order to direct federal agencies to carry out mass firings and directed it to reverse the order.
“The Office of Personnel Management has absolutely no legal authority to hire or fire employees at other agencies,” U.S. District Judge William Alsup stated, as reported by The Washington Post.
“Congress has delegated hiring and firing powers directly to individual agencies. For instance, the Department of Defense has specific legal authority over its own staffing decisions,” Alsup said in a federal court in San Francisco.
The ruling requires the Office of Personnel Management to retract directives sent to various federal agencies that led to the termination of thousands of employees.
The latest ruling stems from lawsuits filed by unions and advocacy groups, arguing that the mass terminations of probationary employees were unlawful.
This decision marks another legal setback for Trump’s efforts to reshape the federal government.
It follows a recent ruling by another district judge on the West Coast blocking Trump’s refugee admission ban. It comes weeks after a court halted his executive order attempting to revoke birthright citizenship.
