A U.S. board that reviews the firings of federal employees on Wednesday ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture to temporarily reinstate thousands of workers who lost their jobs as part of President Donald Trump's layoffs of the federal workforce.
The decision was issued a day after a federal judge blocked Trump from firing Harris, a Democrat, and removing her from her position with the board without cause before her term expires in three years.
The merit board has proved to be a potential roadblock in the Trump administration's efforts to carry out mass firings of probationary workers. It has already halted the firing of six other such employees at the request of a watchdog agency whose leader Trump has also sought to fire, Hampton Dellinger of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.
Dellinger, an appointee of Trump's Democratic predecessor Joe Biden, on Tuesday revealed that he had asked the board to halt the firing of thousands of USDA employees.
(This story has been corrected to fix the day of the order to Wednesday in paragraph 1)
