President Donald Trump has seized the authority to lay off federal workers and reorganize the federal government in a way that critics say no president has been able to do in more than 100 years.

The power, which the Supreme Court gave temporarily in a July 8 order, puts at risk thousands of federal jobs across the country at agencies that collect taxes, provide health care to veterans, and help administer retirement benefits.

Labor unions say the cuts fly in the face of established law and decades of tradition, but a senior White House official told USA the layoffs are legal, and the administration intends toimmediately reduce the size of government.

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While the court did not rule on the underlying question of Trump’s ability to enact widespread job cuts, the justices said they were likely to affirm that power.

A final decision in favor of the president will continue a trend in which the executive branch increases its power in relation to Congress and the courts − making Trump and future presidents more powerful than they’ve been in generations.

The American Federation of Government Employees, a labor union that partnered with outside groups and local governments to sue the Trump administration, said the high court “has dealt a serious blow to our democracy and puts services that the American people rely on in grave jeopardy.”

Trump, Musk and a California judge

Trump began the mass layoffs, called a reduction in force, when he signed an executive order Feb. 11 flanked by then-aide Elon Musk. The order called on agencies to begin a monthslong process to reduce the ranks of government “to the extent applicable by law.”

Elon Musk displays a chainsaw given to him by Argentine President Javier Milei during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) outside Washington, D.C., on Feb. 20, 2025.

AFGE, the largest federal labor union, joined with other unions, nonprofit organizations and local governments on April 28 to sue the Trump administration, saying that it needed Congress’ approval for mass layoffs.

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A federal judge in California sided with the union in May and blocked the layoff plan at more than two dozen federal agencies while the pollicy was being challenged. The Trump administration told the Supreme Court this was an overreach, and the high court agreed in a July 8 decision.

This gave a greenlight to layoffs until the high court decides to take up the underlying case. While the justices didn’t issue a decision on the underlying case, they said the Trump administration was “likely to succeed,” in arguing the executive order was “lawful.”

The senior White House official said agencies are now awaiting guidance on the next step in the layoff process, but the administration will be acting immediately. The official said some agencies had layoff plans before U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, in San Francisco, took action, and now those plans are unpaused.

The agencies that are now free from Judge Illston’s block include Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Health and Human Services, Justice, Labor, Treasury, State, Veterans Affairs, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Social Security Administration. (Some agencies may still be blocked from layoffs due to other cases.)

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The senior White House official said they expect to be sued over individual agency layoff plans, which the Supreme Court decision did not address, but the administration expects to win those lawsuits.

A group of people protest what they expect will be a large reduction in force affecting workers at the State Department in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 27, 2025.

If agencies proceed with previously announced layoff plans, thousands of federal workers across the country could soon lose their jobs. For example, the Department of Health and Human Services announced April 1 it would begin the process of laying off 10,000 employees.

As part of the process, agencies offered employees buyouts and early retirement incentives. The Department of Veterans Affairs, the largest civilian agency in the federal government, saw 17,000 employees resign since January and expects another 12,000 to leave by the end of September, according to Secretary Doug Collins.

As a result, Collins said the agency would not need to conduct widespread layoffs. A previously leaked memo said Veterans Affairs would lay off 76,000 people.

Who has the power to fire?

Peter Shane, an adjunct professor at New York University School of Law, told USA TODAY that over the years Congress has given the president authority to move parts of agencies around, but retained veto authority over the changes following the 1930s New Deal.

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The Supreme Court ruled that veto authority unconstitutional in the 1980s. In response, Congress took back its reorganization authority. Shane called Trump’s February executive order a “workaround.”

A person holds a sign outside of the Center for Disease Control after the Trump administration began layoffs of 10,000 staffers at the Department of Health & Human Services, including the FDA, CDC and the National Institutes of Health, in Atlanta, April 1, 2025.

“By forcing draconian cuts on agencies, you can accomplish exactly what your organizational plans were intended to accomplish, but without giving Congress any say,” Shane said. “And that’s why what the court is doing, or failing to do, has such dramatic implications for the balance of power.”

Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow for the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the union’s case was “astonishing” because presidential administrations have long implemented reductions in force, including when he worked for the government decades ago.

“It’s not as if this is something new or unprecedented − and the idea that this is going to cause some kind of huge problem with the federal government being able to carry out its duties is also frankly ridiculous,” von Spakovsky said.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump wins broad authority to lay off federal workers without Congress

In Today’s News and Commentary, the Supreme Court green-lights mass firings of federal workers, the Agricultural Secretary suggests Medicaid recipients can replace deported farm workers, and DHS ends Temporary Protected Status for Hondurans and Nicaraguans.

In an 8-1 emergency docket decision released yesterday afternoon, the Supreme Court lifted an injunction by U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, who had blocked 19 agencies from complying with Executive Order No. 14210 and a joint memorandum from the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management. In granting the administration’s application for stay, the Supreme Court cleared the way for individual agencies to implement wide-scale reduction-in-force plans. The lower courts will continue to address the case on the merits, but this outcome—no matter how temporary—is an unequivocal win that will further embolden the Trump administration. Even though the executive order and memo might ultimately be found to be lawful, and federal workers may still attain relief in the form of backpay and/or reinstatement if the reduction-in-force plans themselves are unlawful, this possibility seems remote and provides little solace to the thousands of additional federal workers who will be affected by this iteration of mass layoffs. Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson, the lone dissenter, described the decision as “hubristic and senseless” and underscored the dueling narratives at work: “What one person (or President) might call bureaucratic bloat is a farmer’s prospect for a healthy crop, a coal miner’s chance to breathe free from black lung, or preschooler’s opportunity to learn in a safe environment. The details of the programs that this executive action targets are the product of policy choices that Congress has made—a representative democracy at work.” She further noted that it is “hard to imagine deciding [this issue] in any meaningful way after those changes have happened.”

Yesterday at a press conference, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins spoke out against “amnesty” but added a twist: Medicaid recipients can replace deported migrant farmworkers. Any second thoughts President Trump harbored about decimating via deportation the labor pool for farms, restaurants, and hotels, have taken a backseat to fulfilling his central campaign promise. With increased access to resources and a monstrous ICE budget—$170 billion, thanks to the Big, Beautiful Bill—mass deportation has become a question of when and how, not if. Mass deportation is fundamentally incompatible with our economy because it represents an existential threat to the composition of low-wage industry labor pools, but Secretary Rollins did not mince words: “There will be no amnesty. The mass deportations continue, but in a strategic way. And we move the workforce towards automation and 100% American participation, which with 34 million able-bodied on Medicaid we should be able to do fairly quickly.” Secretary Rollins’ proposal raises questions of feasibility, fairness, and food security; and in this attempt to rebrand Medicaid work requirements as a solution to impending vacancies, Rollins ignores the inescapable reality: farm workers are skilled and cannot easily be replaced by either .

Lastly, in its quest to create more undocumented immigrants, the Department of Homeland Security announced earlier this week that Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Honduras and Nicaragua will end on September 6, 202, or 60 days after Monday’s termination notices are published in the Federal Register. Honduras and Nicaragua initially received TPS designations in 1999, and Biden most recently renewed Honduras’s designation in 2023. There are an estimated 72,000 Hondurans and 4,000 Nicaraguans that depend on TPS for legal status, work authorization, and stability. Advocates reacted quickly and filed a lawsuit (National TPS Alliance et al. v. Noem et al.) in the Northern District of California, arguing that DHS violated the Administrative Procedure Act by canceling TPS designations without an objective review of country conditions and instead relying on a predetermined political decision aimed at dismantling the TPS program. The Trump administration has already canceled designations for Venezuela, Afghanistan, Cameroon, Nepal, and Haiti.

New Analysis Highlights Real-World Impacts of Ongoing Staffing Cuts to National Parks

Washington, D.C. — In a decision with sweeping consequences, the U.S. Supreme Court has lifted a lower court injunction blocking President Trump’s executive order directing federal agencies to prepare for large-scale reductions in force (RIF). While lower court challenges continue, this decision clears the way for the administration to move forward with mass federal layoffs, including devastating reductions at the National Park Service.

In response, the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks (CPANP), Association of National Park Rangers (ANPR) and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) have released new analysis detailing the real-world consequences of further staffing cuts, from slashed visitor services and delayed maintenance to weakened wildfire response and threats to cultural and natural resource protection. The findings are clear: continued cuts jeopardize the Park Service’s core mission to preserve America’s natural and historic treasures “unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”

“The National Park Service is reeling from historic staffing losses. Nearly a quarter of its permanent staff are gone, and the rest are being stretched to the brink just trying to keep parks open, safe and protected,” said Theresa Pierno, President and CEO of NPCA. “The Supreme Court has opened the door to even deeper, more dangerous cuts, putting thousands of Park Service staff and the future of America’s national parks at risk. It took more than a century to build a world-class park system, and this administration could unravel it in a matter of months.”

Since the Trump administration took office, the Park Service has lost 24% of its permanent workforce, adding to a 20% cut in staff since 2010. Across the country, parks have already been forced to reduce visitor center hours, cancel educational programs, delay maintenance and conservation work, and leave critical law enforcement positions unfilled.

“This is an appalling way to treat employees who have dedicated their passions and careers to taking care of the visiting public and protecting the places that American Citizens have determined to be special,” said Bill Wade, Executive Director of ANPR. “We have never seen the morale of employees so low. How can they do their jobs effectively when they are experiencing such terrible treatment and when they fear layoffs?”

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has repeatedly called for cutting “overhead” in regional and Washington-based offices—staffed by scientists, planners, contracting experts, and so many others whose work is essential to keeping our entire National Park System up and running. These offices are the operational backbone of the Park Service, providing critical support across natural and cultural resource management, visitor services, business operations, external affairs and planning.

“This ruling by the Supreme Court will make an already dire situation at many national parks, program offices, and regional offices far worse,” said Emily Thompson, Executive Director of the CPANP. “Our National Park System needs NPS employees to help ensure our parks are safe and accessible, and the irreplaceable resources they protect will be around for future generations. Moving forward, safety at parks could be compromised and visitors should expect longer lines, reduced hours of operation at facilities, trails that are not maintained, limited access to some park amenities, and far fewer park rangers to help ensure they have a safe and memorable visit to their national parks. This is the worst-case scenario.“

Through this joint analysis, NPCA, ANPR, CPANP and PEER are holding the administration and Congress accountable to their duty to safeguard America’s most treasured places, demanding they immediately stop all further cuts, end the hiring freeze and fully restore all lost positions.

“Our national parks are poorly positioned to weather the storm of more layoffs and firings,” said Tim Whitehouse, Executive Director of PEER. “The steady decline of National Park Service staffing is putting both visitors and park resources at great risk. The Supreme Court’s decision could make a bad situation even worse. If Congress doesn’t act quickly, we risk losing the very people who make our national parks the treasures they are.”

You can access the new analysis here. This resource will be updated regularly to reflect new developments and threats.

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About the National Parks Conservation Association: Since 1919, the nonpartisan National Parks Conservation Association has been the leading voice in safeguarding our national parks. NPCA and its more than 1.6 million members and supporters work together to protect and preserve our nation’s most iconic and inspirational places for future generations. For more information, visit www.npca.org.

About the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks: CPANP is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization made up of over 4,500 members, all of whom are current, former, and retired employees or volunteers of the National Park Service (NPS). Together, they have accumulated over 50,000 years of experience caring for America’s most valuable natural and cultural resources. Our members include former NPS directors, deputy and regional directors, superintendents, park rangers (both law enforcement and interpretive), maintenance and administrative professionals, and many other dedicated career professionals. For more information, visit www.protectnps.org.

About the Association of National Park Rangers: The ANPR is an organization created to communicate for, about, and with National Park Service employees of all disciplines; to promote and enhance the professions, spirit, and mission of National Park Service employees; to support management and the perpetuation of the National Park Service and the National Park System; and to provide a forum for professional enrichment. For more information, visit www.anpr.org.

About Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility: PEER protects public employees who protect our environment. It is a service organization for environmental and public health professionals, land managers, scientists, enforcement officers and other civil servants dedicated to upholding environmental laws and values. For more information, visit www.peer.org.

The Trump administration‘s plan to lay off thousands of federal workers moved closer to a reality on Tuesday, when the United States Supreme Court lifted a lower court order that had temporarily blocked the terminations.

The initial lawsuit addressed by the lower court was jointly filed on April 28 by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and 11 nonprofit organizations, as well as the local governments of states including California, Texas, and Illinois. The legal move intended to preserve the federal workforce, which was among the cuts included in President Trump’s Executive Order 14210.

In a statement, the groups warned that Tuesday’s ruling puts “services that the American people rely on in grave jeopardy” and “does not change the simple and clear fact that reorganizing government functions and laying off federal workers en masse haphazardly without any congressional approval is not allowed by our Constitution.”

The lower court ruling halted the mass firing and reorganization of 19 federal agencies and departments, including at the State Department and the Social Security Administration. Elsewhere in the court system, another lawsuit took aim against the administration’s decision to bypass federal protocol, which requires Congress to approve cuts at such a large scale, as the Washington Post reported.

“For some reason, this Court sees fit to step in now and release the President’s wrecking ball at the outset of this litigation,” Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in her 15-page dissent. “In my view, this decision is not only truly unfortunate but also hubristic and senseless.”

Jackson was the only one of nine Supreme Court members to dissent, with two known liberal justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor siding this time with conservatives.

In her opinion, Sotomayor wrote that planned reorganizations and workforce reductions were “consistent with applicable law.”

She added: “The plans themselves are not before this Court, at this stage, and we thus have no occasion to consider whether they can and will be carried out consistent with the constraints of law.”

The lower court judge can still assess the legality of the administration’s plans after they have gone into effect, which could effectively bring the case back before the Supreme Court at a later date.

This decision is not expected to impact a preliminary injunction in a separate lawsuit that stopped terminations and restructuring at sub-agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a center within the Food and Drug Administration, and Head Start.

The State Department is still planning to cut 15 percent of its staff, with plans for other government agencies remaining unclear.

Prior to the ruling, however, thousands of federal workers had already been fired, deferred resignation, or had been placed on leave. Despite Elon Musk’s departure from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which oversaw and was the driving force behind much of these planned overhauls, changes are expected to continue.

Art programs and grants funded via government agencies, including the National Endowment for the Humanities, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences, have already been subject to drastic cuts. Some of those funds are expected to support the creation of new statues at new National Garden of Heroes to the tune of $40 million.

Earlier this week, it was announced that exhibition programming at the Smithsonian Institution is currently under review by the White House.

The Supreme Court is allowing the Trump administration to proceed for the time being with Federal agency reorganization and reduction-in-force (RIF) plans proposed by the White House earlier this year, but also appeared to carve out some room in an order issued on July 8 for specific agency reorganization and RIF plans to be challenged in lower courts.

That unsigned order from the Supreme Court at least temporarily gives the administration the go-ahead to execute on plans to lay off thousands of Federal workers at 19 agencies including the Social Security Administration, and Departments of State and Treasury.

While the order did not include a vote count, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only justice to write a public dissent. Justice Sonia Sotomayor expressed some support for the thrust of Jackson’s dissent, but did not join it.

The Supreme Court order stayed a ruling by U.S. District Judge Susan Illston who issued an indefinite pause on President Donald Trump’s plans to lay off thousands of Federal workers, which stemmed from an executive order he signed in February that requires Federal agencies to prepare reorganization and RIF plans.

Judge Illston ruled that Trump needed approval from Congress before restructuring the Federal government and conducting mass layoffs. That lower court decision sent the Trump administration to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, where a divided three-judge panel upheld Judge Illston’s order, ultimately leading the administration to file an emergency application with the Supreme Court.

SCOTUS Reasoning

The Supreme Court’s July 9 decision vacates the stay put in place by the Federal Appeals Court, but it also does not pass judgment on any specific agency reorganization and RIF plans that may be forthcoming.

“The District Court’s injunction was based on its view that Executive Order No. 14210 … and a joint memorandum from the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management implementing that Executive Order are unlawful,” the Supreme Court majority said.

“Because the Government is likely to succeed on its argument that the Executive Order and Memorandum are lawful – and because the other factors bearing on whether to grant a stay are satisfied – we grant the application” to dismiss the stay upheld by the Federal Appeals court, the majority wrote.

The Supreme Court clarified that Judge Illston made her decision based on whether the issuance of the executive order was legal and not whether the plans themselves were legal, noting that those “plans are not before this Court” and that the justices’ decision was solely based on the order’s legality.

In concurring with the majority opinion, Justice Sotomayor said she agreed with Justice Jackson that “the President cannot restructure federal agencies in a manner inconsistent with congressional mandates.”

“Here, however, the relevant Executive Order directs agencies to plan reorganizations and reductions in force ‘consistent with applicable law,’ … and the resulting joint memorandum from the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management reiterates as much,” she continued.

But, Justice Sotomayor said, “the plans themselves are not before this Court, at this stage, and we thus have no occasion to consider whether they can and will be carried out consistent with the constraints of law. I join the Court’s stay because it leaves the District Court free to consider those questions in the first instance.”

Some Democratic lawmakers have vowed to push back against reorganization and RIF plans and reiterated their intentions following the release of the July 8 Supreme Court decision.

“Oversight Democrats will not sit back as Trump turns the Court into a political weapon,” said Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., who serves as the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “We will keep fighting to protect the American people and prevent the destruction of our federal agencies.”

“The damage from these mass firings will last for decades, and weaken the government’s ability to respond to disasters and provide essential benefits and services,” the representative added.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., wrote on X that “we won’t stop fighting to stop these illegal firings.”

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which was joined by 11 nonprofit organizations and six local governments in filing the original suit in Federal District court, said the group will continue its fight against the administration’s aims.

“This decision does not change the simple and clear fact that reorganizing government functions and laying off federal workers en masse haphazardly without any congressional approval is not allowed by our Constitution,” said the coalition in a joint statement.

“While we are disappointed in this decision, we will continue to fight on behalf of the communities we represent and argue this case to protect critical public services that we rely on to stay safe and healthy.”

Meanwhile U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi touted the court’s decision in a post to X, writing that “federal agencies can become more efficient than ever before.”

The stay on the injunction on Trump’s plans will remain in place until the case is further litigated, according to the order from the Supreme Court.

In her 15-page dissent, Justice Jackson called the majority’s order “the wrong decision at the wrong moment,” noting that the court knows little about “what is actually happening on the ground.”

“For some reason, this Court sees fit to step in now and release the President’s wrecking ball at the outset of this litigation,” Jackson wrote. “In my view, this decision is not only truly unfortunate but also hubristic and senseless.”