San Francisco, California - A federal judge in San Francisco has indefinitely halted the Trump administration's mass firings during the ongoing government shutdown.

Judge Susan Illston of the US District Court for the Northern District of California granted a preliminary injunction after earlier this month issuing a temporary restraining order blocking the layoffs, known as reductions in force or RIFs.

The American Federation of Government Employees and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees filed the lawsuit in late September in a bid to protect federal workers from mass terminations.

The suit has since been expanded to include members of the National Federation of Federal Employees, National Association of Government Employees, Service Employees International Union, National Treasury Employees Union, American Federation of Teachers, and International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers.

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The unions argue that the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management violated the Administrative Procedure Act with their RIF plan.

"I believe that I will find that their actions are arbitrary and capricious, as shown by the haphazard way in which the RIFs have rolled out, and they are intended for the purpose of political retribution," Ilston said on Tuesday, according to NOTUS.

"I think it’s important that we remember that although we are here talking about statutes and administrative procedure and the like, we are also talking about human lives," the judge noted.

The US government has been shuttered for weeks as Democrats and Republicans have failed to reach an agreement on a stopgap funding bill.

The White House earlier this month said it would likely lay off at least 10,000 federal workers during the shutdown.

Court documents filed by the Department of Justice show that more than 4,000 employees have already received layoff notices.

"President Trump is using the government shutdown as a pretense to illegally fire thousands of federal workers – specifically those employees carrying out programs and policies that the administration finds objectionable," AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a statement on Tuesday.

"We thank the court for keeping in place its order preventing the administration from firing workers due to the shutdown while we continue our litigation in court."

"Firing federal workers during a government shutdown is as cruel as it is unlawful," said SEIU Executive Vice President Heather Conroy. "This administration has made clear whose side it’s on, siding with billionaires over working people time and time again."