The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 1, 2025, with a sign advising the Capitol Visitors Center is closed due to the government shutdown. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Friday clarified and broadened a temporary restraining order she issued earlier this week that blocks the Trump administration from laying off federal employees during the ongoing government shutdown.
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California Judge Susan Illston said during an emergency hearing the restraining order affects any agency that has employees who are members of the unions that brought the lawsuit or are in collective bargaining units.
The Trump administration choosing not to recognize those union activities based on an earlier executive order doesn’t mean an agency can issue layoff notices, she said.
Illston, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, specifically said the departments of Interior and Health and Human Services must comply with the TRO and cannot issue Reductions in Force, or RIFs.
“It is not complicated,” Illston said. “During this time these agencies should not be doing RIFs of the protected folks that we’re talking about.”
She also added the National Federation of Federal Employees, Service Employees International Union and National Association of Government Employees, Inc. to the lawsuit and the temporary restraining order.
Meanwhile, as the shutdown that began Oct. 1 extends with no end in sight, administration officials said they will freeze $11 billion in Army Corps of Engineers projects and furlough Energy Department employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration.
Unions argue administration ignoring part of judge’s order
The California case was originally brought by the American Federation of Government Employees, the AFL-CIO and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
Danielle Leonard, an attorney representing those unions, said during the hearing the Trump administration had been “overly narrowly interpreting the scope of the TRO and ignoring some of the language in the TRO.”
Leonard pointed to a brief filed by the Department of Health and Human Services that said the agency hadn’t issued any layoff notices to workers covered by the TRO, even though an earlier filing to the court said HHS had sent notices to 982 employees.
That department, Leonard said, appeared to take the position that an earlier executive order ended all union representation at HHS.
“The government is well aware that is a disputed issue,” Leonard said.
Elizabeth Hedges, counsel for the Trump administration, said after considerable back and forth that she didn’t agree with Leonard and the judge’s interpretation of the temporary restraining order’s impact.
“I would submit that’s not what the TRO says,” Hedges said, though she later told the judge she would make sure the administration complied with the updated explanation of the restraining order.
Hedges also told the judge the Interior Department didn’t previously disclose it was contemplating layoffs because officials began considering those RIFs before the shutdown and were only going to implement them during the shutdown because it’s gone on so long.
The judge ordered the Trump administration to tell the court by 9 a.m. Pacific on Monday about any actual or imminent layoff notices under the full scope of the restraining order.
Army Corps to pause billions in big-city projects
White House budget director Russ Vought announced hours before the emergency court hearing the administration plans to freeze and may unilaterally cancel billions more in funding approved by Congress.
“The Democrat shutdown has drained the Army Corps of Engineers’ ability to manage billions of dollars in projects,” Vought wrote in a social media post. “The Corps will be immediately pausing over $11 billion in lower-priority projects & considering them for cancellation, including projects in New York, San Francisco, Boston, and Baltimore. More information to come from the Army Corps of Engineers.”
The Trump administration has been cited several times by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office for not spending money approved by Congress as lawmakers intended.
Generally, after Congress approves a spending bill and it becomes law, the president is supposed to faithfully implement its provisions.
Any president that wants to cancel funding lawmakers already approved is supposed to send Congress a rescissions request, which starts a 45-day clock for members to approve, modify, or ignore the request.
The Trump administration followed that legal pathway earlier this year when it asked Congress to cancel billions in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and foreign aid.
The House and Senate, both controlled by Republicans, approved the request after senators preserved full funding for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR.
The White House budget office sent up another rescissions request in late August, asking lawmakers to cancel billions of additional spending on foreign aid programs.
Neither chamber has taken action to approve that request, but Vought believes that since it was sent up within the last 45 days of the fiscal year, he is allowed to cancel that funding without congressional action.
The GAO and Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, have both called the maneuver, known as a pocket rescission, unlawful.
Nuclear security workers to be furloughed
The Trump administration also announced Friday that it would have more than 1,000 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration stop working for the remainder of the shutdown, joining hundreds of thousands of others on furlough. According to its website, the NNSA’s job “is to ensure the United States maintains a safe, secure, and reliable nuclear stockpile through the application of unparalleled science, technology, engineering, and manufacturing.”
An Energy Department spokesperson wrote in an email to States Newsroom that “approximately 1,400 NNSA federal employees will be furloughed as of Monday, October 20th and nearly 400 NNSA federal employees will continue to work to support the protection of property and the safety of human life. NNSA’s Office of Secure Transportation remains funded through October 27, 2025.”
Energy Secretary Chris Wright, the spokesperson said, “will be in Las Vegas, Nevada and at the National Nuclear Security Site Monday to further discuss the impacts of the shutdown on America’s nuclear deterrent.”
During past shutdowns federal employees that must keep working as well as those placed on furlough have received back pay. But Trump and administration officials have signaled they may try to reinterpret a 2019 law that authorized back pay for all federal workers once Congress passes a funding bill and the government reopens.
