Chicago – Attorney General Kwame Raoul secured a decision from the United States District Court for Maryland to temporarily stop unlawful mass federal layoffs and reinstate the jobs of thousands of employees.
The Trump administration fired thousands of federal probationary employees without giving states the 60-day notice required by law. Last night, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) for 18 federal agencies, ordering them to stop the illegal mass layoffs of federal probationary employees and to reinstate fired employees by 1 p.m. on Monday, March 17.
“This ruling requires the Trump administration to stop these indiscriminate and unlawful layoffs and also orders it to undo the harm inflicted by restoring the jobs of hardworking federal employees,” Raoul said. “These mass firings reflect disregard for both the law and the essential role of civil service in maintaining government stability. I am proud to join my fellow attorneys general in seeking due process for the many federal employees, in Illinois and across the country, whose lives have been abruptly and groundlessly thrown into chaos.”
The TRO order comes a week after Attorney General Raoul joined a coalition of 20 attorneys in filing a lawsuit against numerous federal agencies for causing irreparable injuries to Illinois and the other plaintiff states. The lawsuit sought immediate relief. Raoul and the attorneys general argue in their lawsuit that the firings threatened state economies and risked overwhelming their ability to assist those who were out of work. In the two months since the president’s inauguration, more than 440 terminated federal employees in Illinois have applied to the state for unemployment benefits. That number is almost as many claims as were filed by former federal employees in all of 2024.
The TRO stops the unlawful mass firings, orders the agencies to give those employees their jobs back, and applies to the following 18 federal agencies: Consumer Financial Protection, Bureau, Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Interior, Department of Labor, Department of Transportation, Department of Treasury, Department of Veterans Affairs, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, General Services Administration, Small Business Administration, and United States Agency for International Development. While the judge ordered a stop to the illegal firings and required that employees be reinstated, the TRO acknowledges that the administration can lay off employees if it follows the process outlined in federal law.
Attorney General Raoul was joined in filing the lawsuit by the attorneys general of Maryland, Minnesota, the District of Columbia, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.
