A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration violated federal law when the Department of Homeland Security took control of key FEMA staffing decisions and directed the disaster agency to plan for a workforce cut of roughly 50 percent.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston issued the 32-page decision Friday in San Francisco, granting partial summary judgment to a coalition of labor unions, nonprofit organizations, and local governments.

The Federal Judicial Center records that President Bill Clinton nominated Illston to the Northern District of California on January 23, 1995. The Senate confirmed her on May 25, and she received her commission the following day.

Illston entered senior status in 2013 after serving as an active district judge for 18 years. Before joining the bench, she spent more than two decades in private practice in California.

Her education and judicial history are part of the federal judiciary’s official biographical record. The appointment date has also become part of the coverage surrounding a broader conflict between the administration and federal courts over executive-branch workforce changes.

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The new ruling does not immediately reinstate workers, impose penalties, or permanently block every future staffing reduction. Instead, it resolves the central legal claims in the plaintiffs’ favor while leaving the scope of relief for a later decision.

Reuters reported the ruling shortly after it was released:

The dispute centers on FEMA’s Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery Employees, known as CORE workers. They are full-time disaster-response employees hired for renewable two- to four-year terms and have historically made up a large share of FEMA’s workforce.

Beginning in 2025, DHS began requiring FEMA to obtain approval for CORE renewals. At the start of 2026, FEMA did not renew employees whose terms expired, even when supervisors had recommended renewal.

That process continued until January 22, when a severe winter storm prompted the agency to halt the separations.

The September 11 court order says DHS revoked FEMA’s authority to renew CORE employees, later restored that authority under narrower conditions, and ordered FEMA to include a 50 percent staffing cut in its annual plan.

FEMA’s December 2025 plan projected a workforce of 11,383 employees for fiscal year 2026, down from roughly 23,000. The court found that the record did not show how officials arrived at that target.

Illston wrote that the 11,383 figure appeared to have been “pulled from thin air.” The order says FEMA’s chief human capital officer had recommended keeping staffing at then-current levels, while two contemporaneous analyses from FEMA program and regional offices also pointed away from a cut of that size.

Politico congressional reporter Kyle Cheney shared the filing and highlighted both the staffing target and a second order concerning deleted Signal messages:

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The judge based her decision on the Administrative Procedure Act and two federal statutes.

First, the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act established FEMA as a distinct entity inside DHS, transferred FEMA’s personnel functions to the agency, and limited the DHS secretary’s power to substantially reduce FEMA’s functions or its ability to carry out its missions.

The court found that DHS exceeded those limits by taking control of FEMA’s renewal decisions and ordering a predetermined staffing reduction. It also found that FEMA acted unlawfully by acquiescing to DHS’s direction.

Second, the court cited a continuing resolution enacted after the 2025 government shutdown. That law temporarily barred federal funds from being used to initiate or carry out reductions in force, including similar reductions affecting temporary employees.

Illston concluded that the January 2026 CORE nonrenewals violated that restriction as well.

The administration argued that DHS has broad management authority over FEMA and that the agency can adjust staffing levels. It also disputed whether some of the challenged actions were final agency actions subject to judicial review.

The judge rejected those arguments. She ruled that Congress had specifically protected FEMA’s operational independence after Hurricane Katrina and that the staffing directives had concrete effects on CORE employees.

USA Today summarized the central finding:

The staffing fight unfolded against a broader debate over FEMA’s size and responsibilities. President Trump has called for states to take a larger role in disaster response, while his administration has reviewed the agency’s structure and staffing.

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A recent Government Accountability Office review found that FEMA’s staffing declined during 2025 while the agency lacked a workforce plan reflecting those reductions. GAO warned that the combination could affect FEMA’s readiness and its ability to fulfill its mission.

The report also documented how DHS management decisions affected FEMA’s daily work. Officials in six of FEMA’s 10 regions said losing employees who oversaw grants created additional challenges, while a DHS policy requiring the secretary to approve contracts, grants, and awards above $100,000 contributed to delays.

GAO separately noted that CORE employees are temporary full-time workers who directly support disaster response and recovery. Its report described the January lawsuit and said FEMA later offered new terms to 148 CORE employees whose appointments had expired: 94 accepted, 14 declined, and 40 had not responded at the time of the cited court filing.

The administration changed course on some CORE renewals during the litigation. In May, The Associated Press reported that FEMA had begun offering new appointments to workers whose terms expired in January.

FEMA said at the time that the new terms would depend on performance, available work, and funding.

The AP also reported that CORE employees generally serve two- to four-year terms and have historically received routine renewals. Some have remained with FEMA for decades, even though the positions are formally classified as temporary.

That shift affected the remedy but did not erase the underlying legal dispute. The court said DHS continued to control renewal terms and that workers were receiving shorter appointments than FEMA had historically offered.

Illston ordered both sides to meet and confer over what relief should follow. If they cannot agree, they must file a joint statement identifying the remaining disputes by October 9.

The court said it would then issue a separate ruling on the remedy.

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This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.

 

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