In late May, a federal court handed down an order pausing President Donald Trump’s plans to fire a simply astonishing amount of federal workers. As Judge Susan Illston explains in her opinion, the proposed cuts are so sweeping that they would effectively shut down multiple federal programs.

To give just a few examples, Santa Clara County, one of the plaintiffs in this suit, runs a preschool program for 1,200 children that is funded by a federal grant that expires at the end of June. But the county is unable to renew that grant because the federal employees who manage that grant “have now all been laid off and their San Francisco office closed.” The county argues that without the grant, it may need to lay off 100 early learning employees.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has 222 workers that research health hazards facing mine workers, but the Trump administration plans to fire 221 of them. Retirees are unable to reach the Social Security Administration due to layoffs, potentially making benefits inaccessible to many. According to Illston, “one individual got through to a representative only after eleven attempts to call, each involving hours on hold.”

And things will likely get much worse if the Trump administration can fully move forward with their planned firings as outlined in the case.

The plaintiffs in this case, now known as Trump v. American Federation of Government Employees, claim that the Department of Energy “proposed cuts of up to 50% of [the] agency’s workforce.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, they claim, plans to eliminate its entire office that “monitors lead exposure in children.” The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, the plaintiffs claim, plans to cut 93 percent of its staff.

And this is just a small sampling of what is coming if Trump gets his way. The president’s budget called for more than 100,000 cuts — and many agencies’ plans for mass layoffs are not yet public.

Illston’s order is now before the Supreme Court. Trump’s lawyers asked the justices to block Illston’s decision earlier this month. Because the case arises on the Court’s “shadow docket,” a mix of emergency motions and other matters that get decided on an expedited basis, the Court could rule on Trump’s request at any time.

Many of Trump’s legal arguments will be familiar to anyone who has followed his second-term litigation strategy. When Trump loses a case in a lower federal court, his lawyers........

© Vox