A federal judge has rejected federal unions’ request for a restraining order preventing President Donald Trump from firing probationary employees across the government.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper said in his order Thursday that the plaintiffs first need to apply for relief to the Federal Labor Relations Authority. If they lose there, they can seek relief in the appellate courts.

“Federal district judges are duty-bound to decide legal issues based on evenhanded application of law and precedent — no matter the identity of the litigants or, regrettably at times, the consequences of their rulings for average people,” Cooper said in his order.

The National Treasury Employees Union, the lead plaintiff, “fails to establish that it is likely to succeed on the merits because this court likely lacks subject matter jurisdiction over the claims it asserts.”

NTEU and four other unions argued that the firings, which have ensnared thousands of employees at the Agriculture Department and up to 200,000 in the entire federal government, are unconstitutional.

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In addition, “NTEU argues that the firings at issue are so numerous that they will overwhelm the FLRA, thereby foreclosing, or at least forestalling, any meaningful review,” Cooper said in his order.

The judge acknowledged that “district court review of these sweeping executive actions may be more expedient. But NTEU provides no reason why it could not seek relief from the FLRA on behalf of a class of plaintiffs and admits that it would ask other agencies to follow an administrative judge’s ruling in its favor.”

Cooper said “the first month of President Trump’s second administration has been defined by an onslaught of executive actions that have caused, some say by design, disruption and even chaos in widespread quarters of American society.”

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