A federal judge on Tuesday halted the Trump administration’s mass layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services, ruling that the sweeping downsizing plan was likely unlawful.
“The executive branch does not have the authority to order, organize, or implement wholesale changes to the structure and function of the agencies created by Congress,” U.S. District Judge Melissa DuBose wrote in the ruling.
She granted a preliminary injunction requested by attorneys general from 19 states and the District of Columbia. Their initial May lawsuit alleged that “Over the course of a few days in late March and early April, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (Secretary Kennedy) dismantled the Department in violation of Congress’s instructions, the U.S. Constitution, and the many statutes that govern the Department’s programs and appropriate funds for it to administer.”