Judge William Alsup said during a hearing in California, which was livestreamed, that no “statute in the history of the universe” authorized OPM to take personnel action against employees at other agencies.

Alsup’s order is a temporary measure that requires OPM to notify agencies that its directive was unlawful. The judge, a Clinton appointee, demanded the Trump administration provide more documentation about the job dismissals next week in preparation for a forthcoming hearing that will determine a more permanent resolution in the case.

Major labor unions, including the American Federation of Government Employees, and other groups brought the lawsuit. They are being represented, in part, by attorneys with State Democracy Defenders, which was founded by prominent liberal lawyer Norm Eisen.

The attorneys accused the OPM in court papers of illegally ordering agencies across the federal government to terminate their probationary workers “with few exceptions” and “to use a standard notice falsely claiming performance justification.”

“[We] can’t run our agencies with lies,” Alsup said during the hearing.

Probationary government employees are typically those who have been in their roles for less than two years, but they can also include experienced employees who have been placed in new roles.

The unions’ attorneys provided numerous examples of employees across several agencies, including Veterans Affairs, the National Park Service, and the Federal Aviation Administration, who had received brief boilerplate letters abruptly informing them they had been fired because of their job performances despite never receiving any negative feedback from their supervisors.

Andrew Frassetto, for example, received a memo stating that “the Agency finds, based on your performance, that you have not demonstrated that your further employment at the Agency would be in the public interest.”

Frassetto, who holds a doctorate in Geology, had taken a job at the National Science Foundation in September 2024 after working in seismology research for 13 years. He had recently received praise for his job performance from his supervisor.

“Being terminated also severely affects my life and my family,” Frassetto said, noting that his healthcare benefits covered his wife, who teaches preschool, and that he accepted the job with the agency to provide a stable life for his seven-year-old daughter.

Justice Department attorneys argued against the order, saying OPM acting Director Charles Ezell had issued guidance to all executive branch agencies in line with Trump’s executive order establishing the Department of Government Efficiency, which Elon Musk is informally leading. The guidance instructed the agencies to assess probationary employees and terminate ones they did not need, the Justice Department attorneys argued.

“Agencies made their own decisions about which probationary employees they wished to keep and which probationary employees they wished to terminate,” the attorneys said.

DOGE CHARGES FULL STEAM AHEAD WITH MORE CUTS DESPITE SOME CONCERNS ON SPEED

Everett Kelley, American Federation of Government Employees president, celebrated his organization’s temporary victory in a statement and blasted the Trump administration for the allegedly unlawful firings, calling them “demoralizing and damaging.”

“These are rank-and-file workers who joined the federal government to make a difference in their communities, only to be suddenly terminated due to this administration’s disdain for federal employees and desire to privatize their work,” Kelley said.