Judge Says Trump’s FEMA Cut Broke the Law as Administration Pushes Power to the States

Judge Says Trump’s FEMA Cut Broke the Law as Administration Pushes Power to the States
The Trump administration’s effort to shrink FEMA has collided with a federal law designed to preserve the agency’s independence—raising a broader question over whether disaster response can be decentralized without weakening the national safety net.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston ruled that the Department of Homeland Security acted unlawfully when it took control of FEMA’s personnel decisions and moved toward cutting the agency’s workforce roughly in half. The dispute centers on thousands of reservists and other temporary workers who help staff disaster operations, including FEMA’s Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery Employees.

The unions that challenged the plan say the reductions would cripple FEMA’s core mission, were not authorized by Congress and were imposed by DHS rather than FEMA officials. Illston agreed that DHS violated the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act, which bars the department from substantially reducing FEMA’s “authorities, responsibilities, or functions.” She also found that officials offered no “reasoned decision-making” for reversing FEMA’s long-standing authority to renew workers.

The administration presents the issue differently. President Donald Trump has argued that states should assume more responsibility for emergency preparedness and has suggested FEMA should be abolished. A separate account of the ruling said the administration maintains FEMA has “considerable flexibility to determine proper staffing levels,” while Trump’s broader government-cutting agenda has framed federal downsizing as a way to eliminate waste.

That argument now faces a practical and legal test. FEMA projected a workforce of 11,383 for the coming fiscal year—about half its previous level—but, according to Illston, provided no clear basis for that figure. The judge also criticized officials for discussing staffing changes on personal phones through Signal and deleting messages, saying the missing records would be presumed unfavorable to the government. Remedies and penalties will be considered separately, leaving the administration’s restructuring effort under continuing court scrutiny.