An appeals court recently said the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau could conduct mass terminations.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is laying off most of its remaining staff members.
A CFPB spokesperson said on April 17 that the agency is firing about 1,500 people across core divisions, including enforcement and supervision.
The reductions, if they become effective, would leave about 200 personnel in place.
Emails being sent to employees notified them that officials had “identified [their] position being eliminated and [their] employment is subject to termination in accordance with reduction-in-force (RIF) procedures,” according to lawyers representing the National Treasury Employees Union, whose members include CFPB workers.
Employees were told that their access to CFPB systems would end at 6 p.m. on Friday.
Created after the 2008 financial crisis, the CFPB is the sole federal agency with the power to enforce consumer financial laws at institutions that are not banks, such as mortgage originators and payment services.
The mass terminations would lead to entire offices, including offices mandated by law, being “eliminated or reduced to a single person,” the lawyers said in a motion to U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson.
The lawyers said the broad firings appear to go beyond a court injunction and urged Jackson to demand the government show that it has not violated the injunction.
CFPB did not respond to a request for comment on the filing.
Jackson said CFPB’s chief operating officer or another top official must appear at a hearing on Friday morning to outline the scope of the terminations.
Jackson in March blocked the dismantling of CFPB, finding that absent an injunction, officials would eliminate the agency before she determined whether they were legally permitted to do so. A federal appeals court on April 11 narrowed the injunction, concluding that CFPB could proceed with laying off workers.
The appeals court also ruled that the Trump administration could not abolish the agency.
President Donald Trump and adviser Elon Musk earlier this year called for the CFPB’s elimination, accusing it of politicized enforcement. However, administration officials subsequently said the CFPB would continue to exist in some form, noting that Trump has nominated a new director.
