A federal judge ordered the Trump administration on Thursday to retract directives that prompted the firing of thousands of federal workers, saying that those directives were “illegal” and suggesting that the layoffs be stopped. The ruling, by Judge William Alsup of the Northern District of California, stopped short of ordering a halt in the firings and added to the confusion for federal employees, who have been rattled by the mass firings in recent days. Judge Alsup found that the government’s human resources division had exceeded its authority when it issued a pair of memos outlining steps to fire an estimated 200,000 probationary workers. The Office of Personnel Management, he said, was meant to guide agencies but not order them to take action. A coalition of unions, including the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and the American Federation of Government Employees, had brought the lawsuit challenging the firings. Judge Alsup’s ruling came in a lawsuit that contested the firings of thousands of probationary workers. He ordered that the government must quickly alert the agencies involved in the lawsuit, including the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the National Science Foundation, of his finding that the directives were illegal.
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