Judge finds DHS plan to slash FEMA staff violates post-Katrina law

In a ruling issued late Friday, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston determined that the Department of Homeland Security acted beyond its legal bounds by ordering FEMA to reduce its disaster-response workforce, violating a law passed after Hurricane Katrina that shields FEMA's authority. The judge sided with labor unions that had sued over the termination of temporary contracts for thousands of on-call reservists, a step the court said undermined the agency's core mission.

The plan, attributed to former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, was not approved by Congress and would have cut FEMA's staff to about 11,383 employees, roughly half its previous size. Illston previously declined an immediate injunction, but observed that FEMA appeared to be proceeding with the reductions. She also faulted DHS and FEMA officials for using the Signal messaging app on personal phones to discuss the cuts and then deleting those messages, presuming the lost communications would have been unfavorable to the defendants.