Judge Orders Halt to CFPB Mass Layoffs
WASHINGTON, D.C. — This afternoon, a D.C. district court judge froze the Trump administration’s plans to reduce the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) staff by nearly 90 percent. The judge’s order stated that “the Court has significant grounds for concern that the defendants are not in compliance with” the court’s preliminary injunction order and that “CFPB’s attempt to conduct mass reductions-in-force was “thumbing their nose at both this Court and the Court of Appeals.”
The order was in response to an emergency motion filed by the plaintiffs in NTEU v. Vought after over 1400 of the CFPB’s employees received reduction-in-force notices. The motion asked the Court to order the defendants to show cause why the planned mass layoffs did not violate a preliminary injunction prohibiting the agency from laying off any employee unless the agency determines, after a particularized assessment, that the employee is not necessary to the performance of the CFPB’s statutory duties. Public Citizen Litigation Group attorneys are co-counsel for the plaintiffs.
Wendy Liu, an attorney with Public Citizen Litigation Group and one of the lawyers on the case, issued the following statement in response:
“The Trump administration’s attempt to gut the CFPB must be stopped. The court’s order halting the administration’s attempt at mass layoffs is critical to ensuring that the agency can continue to exist and fulfill its statutorily mandated functions.”