Judge: Trump Broke Law Halving FEMA Staff
Judge: Trump Broke Law Halving FEMA Staff
The News
A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration broke the law when the Department of Homeland Security stripped FEMA of control over its own workforce and drove the agency toward cutting its staff roughly in half.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, who sits in San Francisco in the Northern District of California, filed the order Friday. She found DHS "unlawfully usurped the authority" of FEMA and violated the reform law Congress passed after Hurricane Katrina, which bars DHS from substantially reducing FEMA's authorities or functions.
Illston wrote that DHS acted "capriciously" and without "reasoned decisionmaking," and described the staffing target as "pulled from thin air."
The Numbers
FEMA's projected staffing level under the plan was 11,383 employees — about half its prior workforce of roughly 23,000. Some 40% of FEMA's staff are CORE on-call workers whose contract renewals DHS blocked earlier this year.
Timeline
Congress passes the post-Katrina reform law barring DHS from substantially reducing FEMA's authorities or functions.
DHS blocks contract renewals for FEMA's CORE on-call employees, who make up about 40% of the agency's staff, and pushes a staffing plan that would leave FEMA with 11,383 employees.
Illston declines to block the cuts at an earlier stage of the case.
Illston files her order finding DHS acted unlawfully, and says she will presume that Signal messages deleted by officials would have hurt the government's case going forward.
Reactions
Illston, in her order, said DHS did not use "reasoned decisionmaking" when it gutted the CORE contracts, and that the department had seized authority Congress explicitly protected after Katrina.
According to the ruling as reported by the sources, FEMA supervisors and the agency's own human capital chief had recommended keeping staffing flat or increasing it — not halving it.
Coverage on the right framed the decision around the judge herself: The Gateway Pundit described her as a Bill Clinton appointee who ruled against an effort to cut what it called FEMA's "bloated workforce." Left-leaning Raw Story cast it as a courtroom defeat for President Trump over a staffing plan the judge said was "pulled from thin air."
What's Next
The parties must file on the scope of a remedy by Oct. 9, with a separate ruling on penalties to follow. Open questions include whether Illston orders reinstatement, back pay or a structural injunction, and whether the administration appeals.
The case proceeds during hurricane season, with FEMA's staffing unresolved.
More
A significant piece of the ruling concerns evidence. Officials deleted relevant Signal messages using auto-delete timers they had set themselves. Illston said she will presume going forward that those messages would have been damaging to the government's position.
The practical effect of the decision is to limit the administration's ability to restructure FEMA without congressional approval — and without agreement inside the agency it was reorganizing.
Poll
Should DHS be able to cut FEMA's workforce without Congress signing off?
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