US President Donald Trump’s administration is actively working to reinstate nearly 25,000 federal workers who were unjustly terminated. Court documents reveal that officials from 18 departments and agencies have submitted detailed reports detailing their efforts to comply with the court’s orders and rehire the laid-off probationary workers.
Last week, two federal judges ruled that the mass layoffs of recently hired workers were illegal and ordered their reinstatement pending further litigation. These firings were part of Trump’s attempt to reduce the federal workforce, supported by billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge).
The filings filed in a Baltimore federal court on Monday provide a clearer picture of the extensive scale of layoffs across the federal government. They reveal that 7,600 individuals were laid off from the Treasury Department, 5,700 from the Department of Agriculture, over 3,200 from the Department of Health and Human Services, and hundreds from other departments and agencies.
While many of the reinstated workers will resume their jobs, they will initially be placed on administrative leave. On March 13, Judge James Bredar of Maryland and Judge William Alsup of California issued a joint ruling ordering the agencies to rehire thousands of fired probationary workers.
While Judge Bredar’s ruling did not halt the agencies’ actions, it did criticize the manner in which the layoffs were conducted. His decision was made after a lawsuit was filed by 19 Democratic-led states and Washington, D.C., which argued that mass layoffs would lead to an increase in unemployment claims and strain social services.
In a subsequent response to the government’s efforts to reinstate the workers, Judge Alsup expressed concern about the decision to place them on administrative leave, stating that it would not effectively restore the services that the preliminary injunction aims to achieve.
In response, the Justice Department stated in its filings that placing workers on administrative leave was the initial step towards fully reinstating them.
The department has appealed both federal court decisions.
These are not the sole rulings against the US government’s attempt to reduce the bureaucracy’s size. On Tuesday, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from taking any further actions to shut down the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
