On December 4, 2025, Judge Susan Illston of the Northern District of California issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) preventing the Trump administration from implementing layoffs at the Department of State. The court held that the layoffs likely violate Section 120 of the Continuing Resolution that ended the government shutdown, which prohibits federal funds from being used to “initiate, carry out, implement, or otherwise notice a reduction in force.”
Judge Ilston also granted Plaintiffs’ motion for leave to file a supplemental complaint that adds claims challenging the government’s attempts to continue executing layoffs since the shutdown ended in violation of Section 120(a) of the Continuing Resolution, and refusal to reinstate terminated employees in violation of Section 120(e) of the Continuing Resolution. The supplemental complaint also adds a new union, the American Foreign Service Association (ASFSA), to the plaintiff coalition in this case, which includes the American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO (AFGE), the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO (AFSCME), the National Federation of Federal Employees, IAM, AFL-CIO (NFFE), the Service Employees International Union, AFL-CIO (SEIU), the National Association of Government Employees, Inc. (NAGE), the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).
The Plaintiffs are represented by Altshuler Berzon LLP, Democracy Forward, and Democracy Defenders Fund. The Court’s December 4th TRO can be found here, and Plaintiffs’ supplemental complaint can be found here.