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Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison filed a lawsuit with 19 other attorneys general on Thursday challenging the Trump administration鈥檚 mass layoffs of federal probationary employees 鈥� those hired or promoted in the past year or two.

The lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Maryland, names 20 of Trump鈥檚 cabinet members and department leaders and argues the firings violated rules governing mass layoffs. The lawsuit says the terminations have inflicted 鈥渋mmense harm鈥� on the workers and state governments, which will have to review and pay unemployment benefits to thousands of recently fired employees.

鈥淲hether Donald Trump likes it or not, there are laws governing large-scale reductions in the federal government鈥檚 workforce that his administration must abide by,鈥� Ellison said in a news release announcing the lawsuit. 鈥淭rump鈥檚 unlawful mass firings have been needlessly cruel, chaotic, and harmful to many people, including the state of Minnesota.鈥�

The attorneys general are asking a judge to reinstate tens of thousands of fired employees and halt similar terminations.

The Trump administration has not released exact figures of how many employees have been fired and from which agencies 鈥� there are more than 18,000 federal civilian employees in Minnesota.

Out placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas tallied up more than 60,000 from 17 different government agencies. That makes up more than one-third of the more than 170,000 layoffs in February, the highest number since July 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic was roiling the job market. The layoffs threaten to send shock waves through the greater economy as laid off federal workers cut down on spending and struggle to make mortgage and rent payments.

The Trump administration and its so-called Department of Government Efficiency, led by world鈥檚 richest man Elon Musk, have attacked the size of the federal workforce 鈥� with Musk wielding a chainsaw for dramatic effect at a recent right-wing conference 鈥� as they aim to privatize government services and use any cost-cutting savings for tax cuts that will mostly benefit the wealthy.

Agency leaders told probationary workers they were being terminated for unsatisfactory performance, even those with stellar reviews and no record of discipline or poor performance. Ellison and the attorneys general argue the firings were clearly not for performance reasons but rather an effort to hack down the size of the federal workforce. Therefore, they argue, the Trump administration should have followed rules governing large-scale 鈥渞eductions in force鈥� that require 60 days notice and offer protections to personnel such as military veterans.

A federal judge鈥檚 ruling in a separate case brought by labor unions and civic groups led the Trump administration to revise its directive that kicked off the firings but not reinstate the fired workers.

The Jan. 20 memo now says that the Office of Personnel Management, which is the federal government鈥檚 human resources department, is not directing agencies to take any specific action regarding probationary employees.

Following the ruling, the head of the union representing some 800,000 federal workers called on agency heads to rescind the terminations.

Some agencies did reinstate some workers, including the National Science Foundation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to NPR.

Joining Attorney General Ellison in filing the lawsuit are the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawai鈥沬, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.

This story was originally published on MinnesotaReformer.com.