Trump administration moves to restore thousands of test workers

Katie Mettler
| Washington Post

The Trump administration moved to reinstall at least 24,000 federal evidence employees fired in pressing the president to decrease the government, according to the registrations in the two cases in which a federal judge illegally decided the ends.

The records submitted in the federal court in Maryland on Monday, at the end of 18 agencies and mark the most comprehensive accounting so far to fire in recent months, which the administration has repeatedly refused in detail.

Most of the reinstalled employees were placed on paid administrative leave, according to the statements from the agencies officials. Others were fully reinstalled with the payment or were reinstalled without payment if they were on unpaid leave before their termination, according to the records.

Officials have stated that offering all employees back jobs will sow chaos, especially when a court of appeal could later afford to advance endings. But they indicated that they still try to comply with the judicial orders.

The US district judge, James K. Bredar, gave the Trump administration until Monday to send the employment offers to the fired test employees and until 7:00 pm to submit a comprehensive report to the court -a deadline that came as the lawyers of the justice department fought in a complete case in the case of the Federal Court. along a judicial order. The administration is facing a number of legal challenges on a wide range of problems, including the continuous effort led by counselor Trump, Elon Musk, to reduce federal workforce.

The decision in Maryland resulted from a process introduced by 20 democratic general lawyers in early March, claiming that the Trump administration illegally ceased tens of thousands of evidence from 18 federal agencies. The states claimed that these redundancies were performed in an opaque way that overwhelmed the support systems of the state government for unemployed workers and caused economic injury.

This injury would have been mitigated, the states supported, if the Trump administration had given them a notification of 60 days -a warning they said in judicial documents is necessary to the federal government during mass layoffs. The trial, submitted by 19 states and Colombia district, claimed that workers’ termination letters said that they were dismissed for performance issues when, according to the main plaintiff and Maryland Prosecutor, Anthony G. Brown, “the shootings were clear from the administration attempt to restructure and reduce the Federal Government.”

The states asked the judge with a temporary restriction order on March 7, which Bredar granted on March 13 – offering the Trump administration for a few days to make a mass recapture. The decision affects the departments of agriculture, trade, education, energy, health and human services, internal security, housing and urban development, interior, workforce, transport, treasury and veterans, as well as the Agency for Environmental Protection, the Financial Protection Bureau for Consumers, the Federal Corporation, the Administration for Low Deposits.

The Department of Justice quickly appealed to Bredar’s order regarding the reinstallation of the American court of appeals to the court 4, and on Monday requested the same court to issue an emergency break.

But the fourth circuit has not yet been pronounced on the case at 9:30 pm, forcing the Trump administration to comply or risk faced with sanctions from the judge.

In a separate, but similar case, in the Federal court of California, in which a judge ordered the evidence to be offered the jobs back, the justice department also requested an emergency residence in the US Court of Appeal for the 9th Court. On Monday, a group of three judges with this court denied the stay with a 2-1 vote, with a majority finding that a stay “would disrupt the status quo and turn it on the head”.

The decision means that the six agencies in this case – in the departments of agriculture, defense, energy, interior, treasury and veterans and all their subargents – must continue their reshuffle efforts while the call is in progress.

In that case of California, US district judge William Alsup decided that the mass conclusion of federal workers from six agencies, carried out in February in accordance with the orders at the Personnel Management Office, were also illegal. Alsup was the first federal judge who ordered the administration officials to provide jobs back in those fired test workers, followed quickly by Bredar’s decision in Maryland.

In the case of California, Alsup said that the dismissals ordered by the OPM are not invalid, as the Personnel Office has no legal authority to set staff levels at any federal agency. He suggested that the Trump administration is trying to disappoint the probative workers of appeal rights and unemployment benefits, circumventing the requirements stipulated in the federal law on the reduction of force to quickly reduce the size of the government.

Alsup ordered that the mass re -employment effort at these six agencies will start immediately on Thursday, the officials of the Justice Department documenting their progress in the reports. Even though the case in Maryland was left, his decision would be.

The Trump administration has questioned the courts of the courts to prevent the president, as legal challenges for his use uses. The latest tension came Monday, when James E. Boasberg, the chief judge of the US district for Colombia district, asked the lawyers to explain why the administration seemed to give their order on Saturday night, to ask for planes deporting migrants to return to the middle.

– – –

Salvador Rizzo contributed to this report.