The Supreme Court has delivered another significant legal win for President Donald Trump, siding with his administration in a high-stakes case over the mass termination of federal probationary employees. In a move that underscores the Court’s current lean toward executive authority, the justices granted an emergency stay on a lower court’s ruling that had ordered the government to immediately rehire more than 16,000 employees across six federal agencies.
The ruling came in response to the Trump administration’s appeal of a decision by District Judge William Alsup, who had previously instructed the government to bring the workers back while legal challenges play out. The affected departments include Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior, and Treasury.
For now, the employees will remain on paid administrative leave, and the issue heads to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for further review. In its brief order, the Supreme Court emphasized that Alsup’s injunction was based purely on the plaintiffs’ allegations and did not meet the legal threshold to justify such broad, immediate relief.
“Under established law, those allegations are presently insufficient to support the organizations’ standing,” the Court wrote. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, saying they would have denied the Trump administration’s request for a stay.
The White House has not commented on the ruling, but it marks another step forward in Trump’s effort to consolidate control over the federal workforce a key goal of his second term.
A separate case out of Maryland, which challenges the same mass terminations, had also temporarily blocked the firings across 19 states and Washington, D.C. However, that ruling is limited in scope and is now under appeal by the Justice Department.
Though the administration has not confirmed exact figures, lawsuits claim that as many as 24,000 probationary federal employees have been terminated since Trump took office in January. Critics argue the mass firings are causing widespread disruption within federal agencies, while the White House maintains it’s a necessary step in streamlining government and rooting out inefficiency.
In another closely watched legal development, the Supreme Court also allowed the administration to resume deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members under the Alien Enemies Act a wartime statute rarely used in modern times. The 5-4 decision overturned a lower court’s pause on those deportations, granting Trump’s team broader authority on immigration enforcement.
Chief Justice John Roberts separately issued a stay on a lower court’s order demanding the administration return a Salvadoran immigrant who was mistakenly deported, further bolstering the administration’s legal momentum this week.
These rulings suggest a judiciary increasingly open to the Trump administration’s expansive view of executive power especially in areas like immigration and federal personnel management.
As legal challenges continue to mount, the White House is celebrating these recent decisions as validation of Trump’s aggressive approach to governance. But critics warn the implications are far-reaching and could set a new precedent for how much authority a president can wield over the federal workforce and immigration enforcement.
The legal battles are far from over, but one thing is clear: Trump is not just reshaping policy he’s redefining the limits of presidential power, one courtroom at a time.