BALTIMORE — A federal district court judge in Maryland is ordering the Trump administration to temporarily hire back at least 24,000 probationary employees recently fired from over a dozen federal agencies.
Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown led a multi-state coalition in suing Trump over mass firings within the federal government.
Court documents say Maryland has received 813 unemployment claims from fired federal workers between January 21 and March 3, 2025, which Brown claims is a 330 percent increase over this time last year.
Brown and company argued states were not given sufficient notice of the terminations, and therefore were unprepared to economically handle the influx.
The government said the workers were fired for cause related to performance issues, which doesn't require notice.
Judge James Bredar, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, accused the government of being untruthful about the firings, instead suggesting the terminations were part of what's called a Reduction of Force effort, which is lawful if proper notice is provided ahead of time.
In this case, Bredar wrote the government was bound to give affected employees between 30 and 60 days written notice of when they'd be fired, in addition to notifying the states in advance so they could deploy necessary assistance and resources.
Since in Bredar's opinion, the government failed to follow those requirements, he ruled the firings should be blocked at least two weeks until a decision on an injunction is made.
Although more far reaching, Bredar's order was the second of its kind Thursday.
A judge in California, appointed by former President Bill Clinton, also ordered the administration to reinstate fired probationary workers. That ruling, however, only involved six agencies, while Bredar's covered a dozen others.
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The orders drew swift push back from the White House who vowed to fight on.
"A single judge is attempting to unconstitutionally seize the power of hiring and firing from the Executive Branch. The President has the authority to exercise the power of the entire executive branch – singular district court judges cannot abuse the power of the entire judiciary to thwart the President’s agenda. If a federal district court judge would like executive powers, they can try and run for President themselves. The Trump Administration will immediately fight back against this absurd and unconstitutional order."
Elon Musk also chimed in, renewing a push for the judges to be impeached.
"Without judicial reform, which means at least the absolute worst judges get impeached, we don’t have real democracy in America," Musk wrote on his social media platform, X (formerly Twitter).
Since Trump's return to office, several federal district court level judges around the nation have issued an unprecedented number of nationwide injunctions slowing down the administration's agenda.
Such decisions have raised separation of power concerns, sparking questions of whether Trump will comply or defy, considering courts have no true enforcement mechanism against a sitting President with sweeping immunity and control of the DOJ, whose tasked with implementing judicial orders.
Some critics, including Musk, have openly supported the idea of Trump ignoring the courts.
Trump, meanwhile, has called the rulings "crazy," but repeatedly pledged to abide and appeal.
On Thursday acting U.S. Solicitor Sarah Harris filed a motion with the United States Supreme Court, in reference to a pending appeal on Trump's birthright citizenship ban, asking the justices to address nationwide injunctions.
