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Judge rules Trump Administration’s actions regarding FEMA illegal
Economy
A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration violated the law by ordering a 50% reduction in the staff of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
In a ruling issued late Friday, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston of San Francisco found that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) exceeded its authority by taking control of FEMA’s personnel decisions and pushing the agency to eliminate thousands of positions related to disaster response.
Although FEMA operates within DHS, a law enacted after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 prohibits the department from "substantially or significantly" limiting FEMA’s powers, duties, or activities.
Siding with the unions that filed the lawsuit, Illston concluded that DHS violated this law by blocking the renewal of temporary contracts for thousands of reservists called upon to respond to emergencies.
The judge noted that the case record lacked any justification for reversing previous decisions or for the subsequent restrictions DHS imposed on FEMA’s authority to renew contracts.
The ruling does not specify remedies or sanctions. Judge Illston, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, stated she would address these issues in a subsequent ruling next month and invited both parties to submit their positions regarding the relief that should be granted to the unions.
As of Saturday, FEMA, DHS, and the American Federation of Government Employees—the nation’s largest federal employee union and a party to the case—had not responded to requests for comment.
The unions expanded their previously filed lawsuit in January; It was originally filed the previous year and broadly challenged mass layoffs within the administration.
Unions argue that the proposed cuts at FEMA are unlawful on several grounds: they undermine the agency's key role in disaster response, lacked Congressional approval, and were initiated by former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem rather than FEMA itself.
The administration maintains that FEMA has broad authority to determine its own staffing levels.
U.S. President Donald Trump had previously proposed eliminating FEMA and transferring responsibility for emergency response to individual states. Last year, he also established a council to review the agency's functions.
In June, Illston declined to immediately block the cuts, as FEMA appeared to have suspended the implementation of its plans.
However, in her ruling, she noted that the agency now seems to be moving forward: a staffing level of 11,383—roughly half the previous workforce—is planned for the upcoming fiscal year, with no explanation provided for the basis of this figure.
In a related ruling, Illston criticized FEMA and DHS officials for discussing staff cuts via the Signal messaging app on personal phones and subsequently deleting the correspondence.
The judge stated that, going forward, she would proceed on the assumption that "the lost Signal messages would have been adverse to the defendants, as they would have served as additional evidence" of wrongdoing.