Two Federal Judges passed orders requiring the Trump Administration to rehire tens of thousands of probationary workers who were fired because of the President’s efforts to significantly downsize the government, AP News Reported.
The two judges found legal issues with Trump’s mass firing and ordered that those employees be rehired temporarily.
On Thursday morning, U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled that the Office of Personnel Management and Acting Director Charles Ezell, who ordered the terminations at six agencies, had no authority to make these decisions, the Washington Post Reported.
U.S. District Judge James Bredar found that the layoffs also didn’t follow the laws set out for mass termination, such as allowing for 60 days’ advance notice for the employees being laid off. Bredar ordered the firings to be temporarily halted and sided with a lawsuit that claimed the firings were illegal.
The lawsuit claims that at least 24,000 probationary employees have been terminated since Trump took office, although the government has not verified this number. Probationary officers are usually targeted because they are new and lack full civil service protection.
Now, in order for Trump to continue his efforts to reduce the number of people in the federal government, he would have to appeal and win in two separate legal cases or seek Supreme Court involvement.
