Judge paused hours before deadline Trump's buyout offer for federal workers

A federal judge on Thursday paused the Trump administration’s deadline for more than 2 million federal employees to decide by the end of the day whether to resign or stay in their jobs in order to allow time for labor unions to challenge the plan's legality.

U.S. District Judge George O'Toole in Boston issued a temporary restraining order and set a hearing for Monday.

The Trump administration’s lawyers had argued that extending the deadline on the very last day would “markedly disrupt the expectations of the federal workforce, inject tremendous uncertainty into a program that scores of federal employees have already availed themselves of, and hinder the administration’s efforts to reform the federal workforce.”

But after the judge issued his order, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration was grateful for the extension "so more federal workers who refuse to show up to the office can take the administration up on this very generous, once-in-a-lifetime offer.”

Unions representing many of the nation’s federal workers charge that the new Republican administration’s “unprecedented offer” violates the law.

"We will continue to aggressively defend our members’ rights,” said Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, one of the unions challenging the offer.

Workers were given barely more than a week to accept the administration’s blanket buyout, which union officials say did not appear to have followed federal procedures for reducing the size of the workforce.

Congress hasn’t approved funding for federal agencies past March 14.

Federal employees were told they would receive eight months of pay and benefits through September if they resign by Feb. 6. But Congress hasn’t approved funding for federal agencies past March 14.

Unions have warned workers considering Trump’s offer that there’s no guarantee the president can or will stick to it. They’ve also said the offer lacks basic information about whether they might still be required to work for the government, whether they can get a private sector job while still being paid by the federal government and how their pensions, health insurance and other benefits and rights would be affected.

Critics have said the administration’s goal is to make working for the federal government so unpleasant that employees will be driven out.

The administration on Tuesday warned federal employees could be furloughed if they do not accept the buyout and that “the majority of federal agencies will be downsized,” with the Defense Department as an exception.

Federal workers who stay in their jobs have been told they must return to in-person work, embrace new "performance standards" and be "reliable, loyal and trustworthy" in their work, among other new "reforms" across the government.

Trump is pushing both to dramatically shrink the size of government and replace bureaucrats his team has perceived as hostile to his agenda with loyalists.

About 40,000 federal workers had accepted the offer as of Thursday morning, according to Reuters. That represents about 2% of the workforce, below a goal of 5% to 10% the White House has targeted.

'I'm in limbo': Fear and uncertainty in federal workforce as Trump deadline arrives

WASHINGTON ― Fear, shock, and uncertainty have taken hold in the federal workforce as 2.3 million employees across the government face President Donald Trump's deadline by the end of Thursday to decide whether to resign.

The offer came in a surprise email that hit inboxes at 6:04 p.m. on Jan. 28 with a subject line: "The Fork in the Road." At first glance, many employees ‒ who serve from one administration to another and take an oath to defend the Constitution ‒ didn't know whether the email from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management was legitimate or spam.

They were offered a choice: Keep their jobs and agree to new "reforms," including a requirement to work at the office, or hit reply, type "Resign" in the subject line and end their federal government careers. As an incentive to resign, they were offered eight months of pay and benefits through September. They had barely more than one week to make a life-changing decision.

"It was a shock. Are they trying to get rid of us?" said Linda Ward-Smith, a nurse at the Department of Veterans Affairs and president of her local union chapter in Las Vegas, of the sudden buyout offer. "A lot of my members are afraid and unsure because they they're like, if we don't take this, are they going to fire us? Or is it just going to get really hard for us to continue?"

"I see it as a veiled threat," added a 25-year veteran of the federal government, who like other federal employees quoted in this story, was granted anonymity by USA TODAY to speak about their concerns out of fear of retribution from the Trump administration.

"You've got two choices. That's it. There's no hindrance, there's no legal room. It's either you're with us or you're against us," said the worker, who is not taking the buyout but said their fellow federal employees are "walking on eggshells."

"It pissed me off, more than anything else," a 27-year-old federal worker

Trump has spent his first two-plus weeks in office taking a wrecking ball to the federal workforce in a push to dramatically shrink the size of the government and replace bureaucrats his team has perceived as hostile to his agenda with loyalists.

"Everybody's replaceable, and we'll get very good people to replace them if it turns out to be more than we thought," Trump said last month of the buyout plan, which the White House calls "deferred resignations."

At the center of the dismantling is tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, the world's richest man who Trump has empowered to lead the government makeover through his Department of Government Efficiency. Musk has talked about savings of $4 billion a day by the start of fiscal year 2026 in September.

As the buyout deadline arrives, many federal workers told USA TODAY that they don't trust the promised severance pay and benefits will be delivered if they take the offer. Democratic lawmakers have warned them to turn it down, arguing Trump's buyout is illegal.

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