A moratorium on federal employee layoffs lapsed at the start of the partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, removing one hurdle faced by the Trump administration as it seeks to remake the size of the federal government.
That doesn’t mean the government will face a clean path forward in implementing large-scale layoffs President Donald Trump outlined in executive orders last year, with legal challenges to the administration’s layoff efforts that appear far from over.
Congress put the provision to halt layoffs in a continuing resolution in November, part of a deal that ended the longest-ever partial government shutdown. But that provision expired this month when Congress could not come to an agreement on a Homeland Security funding bill.
