(Washington) A US judge on Wednesday ordered President Donald Trump to suspend planned layoffs of federal civil servants during the budgetary shutdown, after the White House announced its intention to lay off at least 10,000 employees.
“If there are policy opportunities to reduce the scope of the federal government, we want to seize them. We are clearly talking about thousands of people. (…) I think we will probably end up over 10,000 layoffs, said the powerful director of the White House Budget Office, Russell Vought, in a podcast interview Charlie Kirk Show.
“We want to be as sharp as we can in the extinction of bureaucracy,” added Russell Vought, who has made this mission his priesthood in this second term of Donald Trump.
But a federal judge in California blocked the public employee firings in response to a lawsuit filed by unions saying they were illegal.
In her seven-page order seen by AFP, Susan Illston, appointed by Democrat Bill Clinton, said the administration was not following legal procedures for downsizing and that administration officials had exceeded their powers.
These staff reductions under budgetary paralysis are “by no means ordinary,” writes the judge. “Some employees do not even know if they are dismissed, because their dismissal notice was sent to their professional account which they do not have access to during their unpaid leave,” she adds.
“It is also highly unusual for an administration to lay off civilian employees during a shutdown with the aim of punishing the opposing political party,” she also argues. “Yet this is precisely what President Trump said he would do.”
More than 4,000 federal civil servants, who work in no less than seven departments, have already received dismissal notices, according to a court document published last Friday.
Frozen pay
Since 1er October, Republicans and Democrats in Congress are unable to agree on leaving the shutdown. A Republican text which would put an end to it failed on Wednesday for the ninth time in the Senate.
According to estimates from the Bipartisan Policy Center think tank, more than 700,000 federal civil servants have been furloughed without pay. Nearly 700,000 others will continue to work without being paid either until the blockade ends.
On the other hand, the more than 1.3 million military personnel were to be paid as planned, after Donald Trump ordered on Saturday to use certain funds in this direction.
The White House confirmed on X Wednesday that the president had signed an executive order to “ensure that active-duty U.S. military personnel receive their pay on October 15.”
In addition to the impact on civil servants, concern is growing that air traffic will be disrupted due to increasing absenteeism among air traffic controllers and transport security officers.
“Cruel” decision
In Congress, Republicans are proposing to extend the current budget, with the same spending levels, while Democrats are calling for an extension of subsidies for health insurance programs for low-income households.
Due to the rules in force in the Senate where Republicans are in the majority, several Democratic votes are necessary to adopt a budget.
But Donald Trump rejects any negotiation on health issues, without first “reopening” the federal state.
To try to get Democratic senators to give in, the president increased threats to eliminate “programs supported by Democrats,” assuring that the blockage was “a big mistake” on their part.
The leader of the Democratic senators, Chuck Schumer, for his part denounced Thursday the dismissal of the civil servants, calling it “cruel, unnecessary, and deeply hurtful”.
“Let’s be very clear, no one forced the government to make these layoffs. They did it because they wanted to, period,” declared the New York elected official in the chamber.
