U.S. District Judge William Alsup Thursday ordered the Trump administration to reinstate tens of thousands of illegally fired federal employees across six federal agencies.

The more than 2 million federal employees have legal rights as civil servants that are supposed to protect them from being fired unfairly, including for political reasons.But the Trump administration's mass firings have exposed a flaw that has left tens of thousands without protection just when they need it the most.

The firings were "based on a lie," judge says, who suggests he may extend his order beyond the roughly 24,000 already included.

A federal judge ordered the federal government to rehire thousands of employees dismissed from six agencies, saying the Trump administrations

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he feels "very badly" for the thousands of civil servants who have lost their jobs in recent weeks but that "many of them don't work at all."

Thousands of probationary federal employees fired by the Trump administration must be offered job reinstatement within the next week, a district judge in San Francisco has ruled, because they were terminated unlawfully.

With thousands of recently terminated federal workers on the job market, several states are hoping to recruit new talent for state government jobs.

Federal worker layoffs have targeted probationary employees, who have less than a year employed at their agency, per USAjobs.gov.

A federal judge repeatedly sounded skeptical on Wednesday that the Trump administration’s mass firings of probationary federal workers were made by the government because the employees couldn’t do their jobs,