Judge rules Trump administration order to fire FEMA staffers was illegal

Federal Judge Finds FEMA Staffing Cuts Violated the Law

Sandego.net – A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration acted unlawfully when it moved to sharply reduce staffing at the Federal Emergency Management Agency by restricting contract renewals for key disaster-response workers.

US District Judge Susan Illston of Northern California concluded Friday that the Department of Homeland Security handled FEMA’s contract-renewal authority in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner. Her decision gives a significant boost to federal employee unions challenging the administration’s effort to remake and shrink the disaster-relief agency.

The dispute centers on FEMA’s Cadre of On-Call Response and Recovery workforce, commonly called CORE. These employees represent roughly 40% of FEMA’s staff and frequently deploy early in the aftermath of hurricanes, floods, and other major emergencies. Their work can include managing aid delivery, coordinating with state and local governments, and overseeing recovery funding that continues long after an immediate crisis has passed.

CORE contracts became the focus of the dispute

CORE employees have generally served on contracts lasting between two and four years, with renewals being common. During a wider 2025 campaign to reduce the size of the federal workforce, however, DHS limited FEMA to 180-day renewals while officials considered a longer-term restructuring plan.

In January, DHS directed FEMA to allow some contracts to expire instead of renewing them, a step that would reduce the workforce as employees reached the end of their terms. The unions argued that the policy amounted to an unlawful effort to dismantle much of FEMA’s operational capacity.

The administration has sought to shift a larger share of disaster-response and recovery duties to states while arguing that FEMA is ineffective, politically biased, and oversized. That assessment stands against concerns about the agency’s existing staffing needs. A 2023 Government Accountability Office report found FEMA faced a shortfall of more than 6,000 employees.

Although FEMA operates within DHS, Congress placed limits on the department’s ability to weaken the agency. A 2006 law states that the homeland security secretary may not substantially or significantly reduce FEMA’s authorities, responsibilities, or functions.

Illston noted that DHS had been exempted from President Donald Trump’s January 2025 federal hiring freeze. Even so, the department later treated renewals of FEMA CORE appointments as though they were new hires under that freeze.

“There is no evidence in the record reflecting reasoned decision for this about-face or for the subsequent conditions DHS placed on FEMA’s renewal authority.”

The judge’s finding does not merely concern a personnel policy. FEMA’s ability to retain experienced responders can affect its readiness when disasters require rapid federal coordination. CORE personnel often carry institutional knowledge from prior emergencies and help connect disaster declarations, aid programs, field operations, and long-term rebuilding efforts.

Signal messages draw a separate rebuke

Illston also issued a separate ruling involving the use of Signal by former acting FEMA head Karen Evans and former DHS deputy chief of staff Joseph Guy. The court found that their handling of messages through the encrypted application violated federal law and department policy.

Evans created a Signal group that appeared relevant to the lawsuit, with messages configured to delete automatically after four weeks. In March, after she was named as a defendant, Evans shortened the auto-delete setting. She did not create a backup until April 2026, by which time the most relevant communications had already disappeared, Illston wrote.

The court determined that Evans’ conduct was intentional and highlighted her prior position overseeing records-preservation policies at DHS.

“Evans should have known better,” Illston wrote. “She previously served as Chief Information Officer at DHS, in charge of the agency’s records preservation policies.”

As a consequence, the judge barred the administration from relying in later proceedings on earlier testimony denying plans for dramatic FEMA staffing reductions or DHS involvement in those plans. Illston said the court would assume the missing Signal communications would have hurt the defendants’ position.

“The Court will presume that the lost Signal messages would have been unfavorable to Defendants because they would have been further evidence of Defendants’ plan, DHS’s control, and Defendants’ implementing actions.”

Relief has yet to be determined

The American Federation of Government Employees and the AFL-CIO brought the lawsuit, and the rulings mark an important victory for both unions. The court has not yet decided the exact remedy, instead directing the parties to negotiate the appropriate scope of relief.

The unions had requested that all non-renewal notices issued to CORE employees since the beginning of the year be withdrawn, that affected workers be restored to their jobs, and that FEMA be prevented from pursuing a plan to cut half of its workforce.

Illston indicated that such relief could be overly broad because FEMA was no longer systematically declining to renew CORE contracts. The next phase of the case will determine what corrective action is necessary in light of the unlawful policy and the evidence lost through the deleted messages.

The decision leaves the administration facing both practical and legal questions: how FEMA can preserve staffing needed for disaster operations, how DHS must comply with congressional protections for the agency, and what consequences should follow from the failure to retain potentially relevant federal records.