The Washington State Attorney General’s office has joined a lawsuit originally filed by labor groups and other organizations to reverse President Donald Trump’s executive order to fire the federal workforce’s probationary employees. 

About 76,000 federal workers live in the state, with an estimated 1,000 so far among those removed from their jobs, including some in the Tri-Cities. 

“There are more than 12 million acres of federal land in Washington, managed by agencies thrown into chaos by these labor cuts,” said Attorney General Nick Brown in a release. “These illegal actions damage Washingtonians across a spectrum of needs – including the reliability of the state’s energy supply, wildfire and forest management, services to veterans, and supports for small businesses.” 

On Feb. 27, in response to the lawsuit, a federal judge in California issued a temporary restraining order against the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, requiring it to rescind all efforts to terminate employees at multiple federal agencies. The next hearing in the lawsuit is scheduled for March 13. 

Among those laid off in recent weeks include dozens of staff connected to the Hanford site as well as Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Hundreds of staff including linemen, engineers and dispatchers at Bonneville Power Administration were also laid off, though 30 of those staff were asked to return given their “mission critical” roles.