WASHINGTON — Two judges ruled Thursday that President Donald Trump’s administration needs to reinstate thousands of federal workers it fired across dozens of agencies, a significant blow to its efforts to cut the size of the government.
But for those people who lost their jobs, there’s still a significant way to go before it all becomes real.
“The people who committed these violations are still in power, and I have little to no faith in their ability to observe the rule of law,” said Frank Zhu, who was fired from the Department of Housing and Urban Development in Chicago on Feb. 14. “Sorry if I’m sounding very pessimistic or like Eeyore, but I don’t feel like anything has fundamentally changed.”
Zhu was one of the many probationary workers cut by the Trump administration over the past month. The term applies to people who are newly employed by the federal government or recently switched jobs or agencies. They typically have less than two years of service in that position, and they lack full civil service protections, making it easier to fire them.
Other recently fired federal workers who spoke to NBC News felt similarly — that there’s so much uncertainty about whether they’ll get their jobs back, especially because the legal developments aren’t over.
On Thursday, a federal judge in California ordered that thousands of probationary employees who were fired from the departments of Veterans Affairs, Defense, Energy, the Interior, Agriculture and the Treasury must get their jobs back. In a separate and more wide-ranging ruling later in the day, a federal judge in Maryland ordered the temporary reinstatement of tens of thousands of fired probationary employees across 12 departments and several agencies across the federal government.
Nathan Teich had worked as an ecologist for the Bureau of Land Management for six months. His termination forced him to scramble to change child care, and he quickly became a stay-at-home dad for his two young children. He said Friday that while his future is uncertain, he at least feels validated that his termination last month was illegal.
“I would love to have my job back. And, you know, my career as an ecologist and as a public servant was just getting started,” he said. “It’s a lot of uncertainty, and I’m trying to balance the things that are right for my career and my family, and it’s really hard to do that when the landscape keeps changing under my feet.”
The administration had said in workers’ termination notices that they were being fired for performance reasons, despite many saying they had received nothing but stellar reviews. The judges on Thursday made clear that the government’s justification for eliminating them was a lie.
“It is sad, a sad day when our government would fire some good employee, and say it was based on performance, when they know good and well, that’s a lie,” U.S. District Judge William Alsup of California wrote in his order.
On Friday, there was no indication from federal agencies that they would immediately comply with the court decisions. The White House signaled that the administration is in no rush to re-employ these workers.
“A single judge is attempting to unconstitutionally seize the power of hiring and firing from the Executive Branch,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “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.”
The Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the civil service, had no comment and pointed to Leavitt’s statement.
More large-scale layoffs may be on their way, as the administration has told agencies to prepare for major “reduction-in-force” plans to cut staff.
One federal worker fired last month from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said the new court rulings are encouraging, but it’s still not clear what will come of them.
“It’s quite honestly meaningless to people who are still in this situation, because I haven’t heard anything from my supervisor if I’m coming back or not,” the person said.
“Even if I got an email right now saying you’re reinstated … yesterday was the deadline for the reduction-in-force plans,” the worker said, referring to the guidance sent to federal agencies last month. “Who knows how those will play out? I know Monday is the start of ‘return to office’ for pretty much everyone else. … It’s hard for me to know what to care about or what to have faith in.”
Trump touted the Department of Government Efficiency’s work in his speech to Congress this month and claimed, without evidence, that “hundreds of thousands of federal workers … have not been showing up to work.”
This week, Trump said he felt “very badly” for the thousands of civil servants who have lost their jobs in recent weeks but claimed — once again without proof — that “many of them don’t work at all.”
“When we cut, we want to cut, but we want to cut the people that aren’t working or … not doing a good job,” he said.
Some probationary employees are receiving other positive signs they could get their jobs back. Probationary workers at the Department of Agriculture began receiving back pay Wednesday from their date of termination after the Merit Systems Protection Board issued a 45-day stay on their firing.
“The Department will work quickly to develop a phased plan for return-to-duty, and while those plans materialize, all probationary employees will be paid,” a department notice said.
Eva Christensen was among those USDA employees fired last month. She was a Washington, D.C.-based agricultural science adviser and was tasked with addressing barriers to trade so U.S. farmers and producers had reliable access to open markets.
Christensen said the employment whiplash raised questions about the expense and time costs of reinstating tens of thousands of employees who were fired.
“How they’re going to onboard 40,000 people at once in any time-efficient manner is a mystery to me,” she said, pointing to the time it takes for even small tasks, like reissuing and relaunching laptops and email. “The Department of Government Efficiency is going to cost taxpayers millions of dollars just to onboard the people who they illegally fired.”
Rachel Spaeth, a research horticulturalist with the Agricultural Research Service who was also fired in February, was informed about the back pay on Thursday. She said she’s “fairly confident” she’ll get her job back.
“The question is when?” she said Friday. “I don’t know that anybody really has that answer.”
“I would just say that this is really ironic, that this is supposed to be efficiency,” she said. “This doesn’t feel very efficient. I think it would behoove them better to take a look at what they’re actually turning off and on before they just flip switches. There could be room for improvement in government, for sure, but this isn’t how you do it.”
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