A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration violated federal law by allowing the Department of Homeland Security to take control of Federal Emergency Management Agency staffing decisions, including a plan that would have cut FEMA's workforce roughly in half. The court also found that senior officials intentionally deleted Signal messages relevant to the dispute, complicating its review of how the staffing targets were developed.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco found that DHS had "unlawfully usurped the authority" of FEMA "to make its own personnel decisions." Her ruling handed a victory to unions challenging the administration's workforce restructuring, although the judge hasn't yet determined what corrective action the government will be required to take.
The dispute is part of litigation brought by unions led by the American Federation of Government Employees challenging the Trump administration's efforts to shrink the federal workforce. The FEMA portion of the case eventually focused on a more specific question: whether DHS could dictate personnel decisions that Congress had placed under FEMA's control.
At the center of the case were thousands of Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery Employees, or CORE staff. Those employees are full-time but hired for limited terms to support disaster response and recovery, giving FEMA a workforce that can expand and contract with operational demands. The Government Accountability Office says CORE personnel are among the temporary employees FEMA uses to augment its permanent workforce.
FEMA traditionally hired CORE workers for terms of two to four years, with many employees receiving renewals. The administration began declining large numbers of renewals as part of its effort to reduce staffing, while DHS officials assumed authority over whether those contracts would be extended.
Illston found that the arrangement violated the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act, legislation enacted after the government's widely criticized response to Hurricane Katrina. The law strengthened FEMA's institutional position within DHS and restricts the Homeland Security secretary from substantially reducing FEMA's responsibilities, functions or ability to carry out its missions.
The court also found that FEMA itself, through a former official, acted unlawfully by accepting DHS control over CORE renewals and broader staffing levels. Those actions violated the Administrative Procedure Act as well as statutory protections governing FEMA, according to the ruling.
One unresolved issue was the origin of a proposal to reduce FEMA staffing by 50%. The plan would have brought the agency to approximately 11,383 employees, roughly half its previous staffing level, but Illston found no adequate explanation for how officials arrived at that target.
The proposed 50% reduction wasn't ultimately implemented as originally envisioned. The staffing situation changed substantially while the litigation proceeded, including changes in FEMA and DHS leadership and the resumption of some CORE contract renewals. AP reported that some previously terminated employees were rehired.
Those developments affected the remedies available to the plaintiffs. "The Court agrees with defendants that some of the relief plaintiffs seek is quite broad and no longer seems to fit with the facts as they have unfolded over the months of this litigation," Illston wrote.
The court found that FEMA was no longer systematically refusing CORE renewals beginning Jan. 22, 2026. That shift didn't resolve the underlying legal issue, however, because DHS continued to exercise control over the renewal process while many workers were offered shorter appointments than had historically been common.
The case also produced a separate dispute over electronic communications that became significant to the judge's assessment of the evidence. Illston found that high-ranking FEMA and DHS officials discussed staffing through Signal on personal cellphones while using automatic-deletion settings that erased messages, often within one to four weeks.
The court found that relevant communications from the period at the heart of the litigation could no longer be recovered. Illston determined that the lost messages were relevant, that their disappearance prejudiced the unions and that officials acted with the intent to deprive the plaintiffs of information that could have been used in the case.
The missing communications were particularly important because discovery hadn't produced a clear explanation for the proposed 50% workforce reduction. Illston said she would presume going forward that the deleted Signal messages "would have been unfavorable to Defendants because they would have been further evidence" supporting the plaintiffs' claims.
Earlier discovery disputes had already exposed problems with the government's production of electronic records. In May, Illston ordered officials to produce FEMA-related Signal chats from the personal phone of a senior official after additional responsive images were discovered, as well as planner notes connected with meetings about CORE renewals.
The workforce reductions occurred as FEMA faced broader concerns about its capacity to respond to disasters. The GAO reported that the agency lost about 17% of its workforce during 2025, with departures contributing to a loss of institutional knowledge and raising questions about mission readiness.
The administration has argued that FEMA needs greater efficiency and that the agency has significant flexibility in determining appropriate staffing. Trump has also previously suggested shifting more responsibility for disaster preparedness and response to states, while creating a council to review FEMA's operations.
The ruling doesn't immediately require FEMA to restore a particular number of positions or reinstate every affected employee. Illston instead directed the unions and the administration to meet and attempt to agree on an appropriate remedy in light of the changes that have occurred since the litigation began.
If the two sides can't reach an agreement, they must file a joint statement identifying the remaining disputes by Oct. 9. "The Court will then issue a ruling on relief forthwith," Illston wrote.
