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(Bloomberg Law) — A San Francisco federal judge ordered the Trump administration to rehire thousands of the government’s newest employees who were terminated in early February.

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Judge William Alsup of the US District Court for the Northern District of California issued an injunction from the bench on Thursday finding the Office of Personnel Management’s order to federal agency heads to fire probationary employees was illegal.

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The order requires the departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, Energy, Interior, Agriculture, and Treasury to rehire the employees who were laid off around Feb. 13 at the direction of the OPM, the federal government’s HR department.

The judge called the OPM’s template termination letter for agencies a “sham.” Each of the agencies must submit a list of terminated probationary employees to the court within a week explaining what has been done for each, Alsup said.

The ruling is a major blow to the Trump administration’s campaign to quickly shrink the size of the federal workforce. Federal worker layoffs are expected to reach into the hundreds of thousands in coming weeks.

Alsup had previously ordered a temporary pause on any additional agency layoffs at the direction of OPM or its acting director Charles Ezell.

At the hearing Thursday, Alsup criticized the government’s handling of the firings and the subsequent litigation. He pointed to evidence of agencies firing employees under the auspices of low performance when in fact they had just received glowing reviews.

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“It is a sad day when our government would fire a good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that is a lie,” Alsup said. “That should not have been done in our country.”

The judge, a Bill Clinton appointee, also condemned the government’s decision to refuse to make Ezell available to testify on Thursday about the decision-making behind the OPM’s directive to agencies. The acting director had submitted a written declaration under oath to the court explaining OPM’s decision, but the government later rescinded the declaration after Alsup ordered Ezell to testify and face cross examination.

Ezell should have faced cross examination so that “we get to the truth,” Alsup told the government’s attorney at the Thursday hearing.

“I tend to doubt that you’re telling me the truth,” he said.

“It upsets me,” Alsup said. “I’ve been serving in or on this court for over 50 years” and “you’re giving me press releases, sham documents” instead of live witnesses, he said.

The OPM didn’t immediately return requests for comment. The plaintiffs called it an “important victory” for federal workers.

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“We’re going to keep holding this administration accountable whenever and wherever they try to undermine the rights of the people of the United States under the cynical guise of reform,” said Norm Eisen, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs.

Altshuler Berzon LLP and State Democracy Defenders Fund represent the plaintiffs. The US Department of Justice represents OPM.

The case is Am. Fed. of Gov’t Emp. AFL-CIO v. OPM, N.D. Cal., No. 3:25-cv-01780, 3/13/25.

To contact the reporters on this story: Courtney Rozen in Washington at crozen@bloombergindustry.com; Isaiah Poritz in San Francisco at iporitz@bloombergindustry.com

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Alex Ruoff at aruoff@bloombergindustry.com

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