Judge rules Trump administration order to fire FEMA staffers was illegal

By Fadel Allassan, Aleena Fayaz, CNN

(CNN) — A federal judge said in a filing Friday that a Trump administration order for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to cut its staffing nearly in half was illegal.

In a decision that marked a critical victory for union workers in the ongoing lawsuit, US District Judge Susan Illston in Northern California said the Department of Homeland Security “acted arbitrarily and capriciously” when it revoked FEMA’s authority to renew contracts for the agency’s on-call disaster response teams. She also rebuked officials for deleting Signal messages that could have been used as evidence in the lawsuit.

The Cadre of On-Call Response and Recovery teams, known as CORE, make up about 40% of FEMA’s workforce. The teams are often the first federal boots on the ground when hurricanes and other large disasters strike. Many of those workers oversee aid distribution and long-term funding to states and communities.

Traditionally, CORE workers have served two-to-four-year contracts that were almost always renewed. But amid an aggressive Trump administration effort to downsize the federal government in 2025, DHS limited FEMA to renewing these contracts to 180 days at a time while it considered a long-term plan to shrink the agency.

In January, DHS instructed FEMA to let at least some of those contracts lapse to force employees out as their terms expire.

The moves were part of a broader push by the Trump administration to overhaul FEMA, shrink its size and shift more responsibility for disaster response and recovery to the states. Since President Donald Trump took office, his administration has argued that the disaster relief agency is ineffective, partisan and bloated, despite a 2023 Government Accountability Office report that found the agency was facing a staffing shortfall of more than 6,000 employees.

While FEMA is a part of DHS, Congress passed a law in 2006 that stated the homeland security secretary “may not substantially or significantly reduce” FEMA’s “authorities, responsibilities, or functions.”

Illston noted that DHS was exempt from Trump’s January 2025 hiring freeze but the department then interpreted “new hires” under the hiring freeze to include FEMA CORE renewals.

Referring to the DHS decision to revoke FEMA’s authority to renew those CORE appointments, Illston wrote, “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.”

A FEMA spokesperson said in a statement the agency “continues to maintain a roster of experienced leadership and support staff across headquarters and regional offices.”

“We’re ensuring workforce stability and a strong, deployable force for upcoming national events and potential disasters; making the agency leaner, faster and laser-focused on supporting state, local, tribal and territorial partners before, during and after disasters,” the spokesperson said.

Judge criticizes use of Signal

In a separate filing, Illston said the use of Signal, a secure messaging app with robust privacy features, by former acting FEMA head Karen Evans and former DHS deputy chief of staff Joseph Guy violated federal law and department policy.

Evans created a Signal chat that “would appear to be highly relevant to this case” with the text messages set to auto-delete after four weeks, the judge wrote. In March, after she had been named a defendant in the lawsuit, Evans shortened the auto-delete timer.

Evans created a backup of her Signal messages on April 2026, “by which point the most timely messages were long since deleted,” Illston wrote. The court found that Evans’ actions were intentional.

“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.”

The judge barred the administration from relying in future proceedings on any previous testimony that denies the plans to dramatically reduce FEMA staffing or DHS’ involvement in the issue.

In those additional proceedings, she wrote, “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.”

The decisions are a win for the American Federation of Government Employees and the AFL-CIO, the labor unions that brought the lawsuit. But Illston didn’t address what remedies the government should provide, ordering the parties to come up with an agreement on the scope of relief.

The unions had sought the rescission of all non-renewal notices sent to CORE employees since the start of the year and to return employees to their positions, along with stopping the agency from implementing a plan to cut 50% of its staff.

But Illston noted that relief would be too broad because FEMA is no longer systemically not renewing the CORE contracts “and there is no indication at present that FEMA is otherwise taking action” on the plan to cut half of its workforce. But the judge said DHS “continues to usurp FEMA’s authority” by ordering the agency to offer contracts of up to 180 days.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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