(WASHINGTON) -- A federal judge temporarily paused the Trump administration's "illegal" reductions in force and reinstated approximately 20,000 probationary government employees across 18 agencies who had been terminated.
U.S. District Judge James Bredar -- an Obama appointee -- concluded that the Trump administration failed to provide the legally required advanced notice before it tried to conduct "massive layoffs." The judge also prohibited the Trump administration from conducting future mass firings without giving notice.
"When the federal government terminates large numbers of its employees, including those still on probation because they were recently hired or promoted, it must follow certain rules," Bredar wrote.
The ruling applies to 18 of the federal agencies named as defendants in the case except for the Defense Department, the National Archives and the Office of Personnel Management.
The decision came in a case brought by 20 Democratic attorneys general who sued last week to block the firings and is separate from a California judge's decision also dealing with probationary employees that was issued earlier Thursday.
Similar to the reasoning of the judge in the California case, Bredar wrote that he believes the government lied when it listed "performance" or other individualized reasons as justification for the layoffs.
“On the record before the Court, this isn't true. There were no individualized assessments of employees. They were all just fired. Collectively,” he wrote. “It is simply not conceivable that the Government could have conducted individualized assessments of the relevant employees in the relevant timeframe.”
Bredar concluded that the states that sued are suffering irreparable harm by having to assist thousands of unemployed workers who were fired illegally.
“Lacking the notice to which they were entitled, the States weren't ready for the impact of so many unemployed people," he wrote. "They are still scrambling to catch up,” he wrote.
Bredar’s order will remain in place for two weeks, and he scheduled a hearing for March 26 to consider issuing a preliminary injunction, which is a longer-term measure.
Like the California case, Bredar did not rule that the Trump administration is not able to conduct mass firings; rather, the administration just needs to provide advanced notice when it conducts a reduction in force. While the order provides a reprieve for more than 20,000 government workers, the lifeline is temporary, even if the order is extended later this month.
The judge's order came after a hearing Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Maryland.
The Democratic attorneys general argued that the Trump administration violated federal law with the firings by failing to give a required 60-day notice for a reduction in force, opting to pursue the terminations "suddenly and without any advance notice."
Lawyers with the Department of Justice have argued that the states lack standing because they "cannot interject themselves into the employment relationship between the United States and government workers," and that to grant the temporary restraining order would "circumvent" the administrative process for challenging the firings.
In separate earlier lawsuits, two other federal judges had declined to immediately block firings of federal employees or to reinstate them to their positions.