Democratic-led states sue to prevent Trump from gutting health agencies

A group of Democratic-led states filed a lawsuit on Monday to challenge the Trump administration's decision to gut the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by firing 10,000 of its employees and shuttering entire agencies within the department.

Attorneys general from 19 states and the District of Columbia in a lawsuit filed in federal court in Providence, Rhode Island, said the job cuts and agency consolidations U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in late March unconstitutionally stripped the department of the resources necessary to do its job.

The layoffs, in addition to earlier buyout offers and firings of probationary employees, reduced the number of full-time HHS employees to 62,000 from 82,000 and left key offices unable to perform statutory functions, the lawsuit said.

As part of the restructuring plan, HHS said it was also collapsing 28 divisions into 15 and closing half of its 10 regional offices.

After the announcement, employees at agencies under HHS including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration were abruptly put on administrative leave on April 1 and told they would be formally terminated on June 2.

The states argue that the intended effect of the restructuring is to dismantle key HHS programs and that the layoffs have led to infectious disease labs being closed, experiments being abandoned and partnerships being suspended.

They argue Kennedy lacked the authority to launch the widespread layoffs and restructuring and that the administration violated the U.S. Constitution by usurping Congress' authority to create and fund agencies' operations.

The states have asked a judge to block HHS from implementing Kennedy's plan announced on March 27, prevent the department from being dismantled and force the administration to restore health programs and reopen gutted infectious disease labs.

New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat involved with leading the litigation, said that by firing infectious disease researchers and closing key health agencies, "you are not making America healthy – you are putting countless lives at risk."

HHS declined to comment. It has said the restructuring was necessary to streamline its functions and that the layoffs would save taxpayers $1.8 billion annually.

The job cuts and agency restructurings were carried out as part of the vast government cost-cutting initiative spearheaded by billionaire Trump ally Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.

The states said the job cuts at HHS left CDC unable to meet statutory mandates to investigate diseases due to lab shutterings, put Head Start centers that support early childhood programs at risk of closing, and had jeopardized work on mental health and addiction treatment.

Following the job cuts, the FDA missed a deadline to approve a new vaccine for COVID-19 and canceled a key test for the bird flu virus as a result of staff terminations at an Illinois food safety lab, the lawsuit said.

The CDC's entire maternal health team was fired, along with much of its division focused on sexual assault and domestic violence prevention and scientists focused on HIV and AIDS, the lawsuit said.

The Democratic-led states argued the cuts will impede their ability to secure resources for their communities and may force them to absorb many of the costs of providing public health services.

For example, they said the gutting of CDC infectious disease labs has resulted in many states sending samples to a New York state-run laboratory.