Federal Judge Blocks White House’s HHS Mass Layoffs and Reorganization

As Reuters’ Nate Raymond wrote on Tuesday afternoon, “A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from moving forward with plans to overhaul the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by reorganizing several of its agencies and substantially cutting their workforce. U.S. District Judge Melissa DuBose in Providence, Rhode Island, issued an injunction, opens new tab at the behest of a group of Democratic-led states who challenged a plan HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in March to consolidate agencies and fire 10,000 of the department's employees.”

As Raymond noted, “The layoffs, in addition to earlier buyout offers and firings of probationary employees, reduced the number of full-time HHS employees to 62,000 from 82,000 and left key offices unable to perform statutory functions, the states alleged. The 19 states that sued, along with the District of Columbia, challenged HHS' implementation of its restructuring plan, which also called for collapsing 28 divisions into 15 and closing half of its 10 regional offices.”

As The Hill’s Joseph Choi noted on Tuesday afternoon, “The suit was filed by the Democratic attorneys general of 19 states and D.C. They alleged in their suit that the Trump administration had overstepped congressional authority and gone against the doctrine of separation of powers. HHS laid off roughly 10,000 staffers as part of its restructuring plan in April. According to public health experts and former staffers, the drastic reduction in staffing threatens the U.S.’s status as a leading health authority. In its counterargument, HHS has argued that the attorneys general lack standing to sue the federal government over this action. To establish standing, the states must prove harm as a result of HHS’s actions. DuBose wrote she was ‘persuaded’ to believe tangible harm had resulted from the drastic changes at HHS, noting the example of disruptions occurring at the Northwest Center for Occupational Health and Safety due to grants not being processed. ‘This unprocessed grant extension has already led to disruptions at NWCOHS, including cancelled grant renewal meetings, inability ‘to provide funded offers of admission for trainees,’ and a decrease in the number of occupational medicine residents admitted for 2025-2026,’ wrote Dubose.”

The Associated Press noted that “DuBose said the states had shown ‘irreparable harm,’ from the cuts and were likely to prevail in their claims that ‘HHS’s action was both arbitrary and capricious as well as contrary to law.’ ‘The executive branch does not have the authority to order, organize, or implement wholesale changes to the structure and function of the agencies created by Congress,’ DuBose wrote in a 58-page order handed down in U.S. district court in Providence. Her order blocks the Trump administration from finalizing layoffs announced in March or issuing further firings. HHS is directed to file a status report by July 11. An HHS spokesperson said the administration is reviewing the decision and considering next steps,” the Associated Press’s staff report added.

Meanwhile, CBS News’s Jacob Rosen and Alexander Tin quoted Judge DuBose as writing that "The Executive Branch does not have the authority to order, organize, or implement wholesale changes to the structure and function of the agencies created by Congress.” They noted that, “As part of Kennedy's restructuring plan, he moved to lay off some 10,000 employees at the nation's health agencies and ordered remaining officials to draw up plans to reorganize their work. Several offices and teams are slated to move under the plans, many into a new agency Kennedy wants to create called the Administration for a Healthy America, or AHA. Most of those employees remain off the job after getting their layoff notices in April but are still being paid, due to cases that sought to block their terminations.”

"HHS is the backbone of our nation's public health and social safety net — from cancer screenings and maternal health to early childhood education and domestic violence prevention," said New York Attorney General James in a statement after the ruling.

Rosen and Tin noted that, “In May, a federal court in California blocked the Trump administration's mass layoff attempts, including at HHS, though the Supreme Court is considering whether to lift a lower court's injunction and allow it to move forward with the administration's plans for reductions in force, or layoffs.” And they noted that Kennedy had said at a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing last week, that "The people who were subject to the reduction in force are on administrative leave, and they will remain on administrative leave until the injunction is lifted.” And they noted that “ Multiple federal health officials said planning has been ongoing for the next steps of the reorganization and merger, even as Kennedy has cited the court rulings as a reason to dodge questions about the restructuring on Capitol Hill.”