WASHINGTON ‒ President Donald Trump on Friday followed through on his long-standing threat to fire federal workers during the government shutdown, taking aggressive action to downsize the government in a dramatic break from past shutdowns.

“The RIFs have begun,” Russell Vought, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget said in a post on X, referring to “reductions in force," or RIFs, of federal departments and agencies.

An OMB spokeswoman would not say how many federal workers are affected, or which agencies were targeted, but described the layoffs as "substantial."

USA TODAY confirmed the layoffs span several federal departments, including Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Education and Treasury.

In a statement, DHS said the cuts will occur within the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which works to protect the nation's critical IT infrastructure from hackers. HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said HHS employees "across multiple divisions have received reduction-in-force notices."

A Treasury official confirmed RIF notices have gone out to department employees but would not say how many.

White House officials have argued the layoffs are needed to ensure essential government services have funding. But many legal experts and unions representing government workers have raised legal objections, accusing Trump of using the shutdown to advance his political agenda and to punish Democrats.

Two unions, the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, preemptively sued the Trump administration on Sept. 30 over the president's repeated threats of layoffs. The suit argues firing workers during the shutdown is an abuse of power that strips federal employees of back-pay rights and violate agencies’ statutory duties.

Shortly after Vought's announcement, attorneys representing the unions filed a motion in federal court seeking a temporary restraining order to immediately halt the layoffs.

“It is disgraceful that the Trump administration has used the government shutdown as an excuse to illegally fire thousands of workers who provide critical services to communities across the country," AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a statement.

Layoffs not carried out in past shutdowns

Historically, nonessential federal workers are placed on furloughs that pause their pay during government shutdowns, but they are not part of widespread federal workforce layoffs. About 750,000 federal workers have been furloughed during the shutdown.

The Trump administration this year has already fired tens of thousands of federal workers as part of Trump's Department of Government Efficiency's efforts to drastically cut the size of the federal government.

For days, Trump warned Democrats he may pursue mass layoffs of workers and shutter government programs if the shutdown, which began on Oct. 1, drags on. The White House held off on reductions for more than a week after initially saying layoffs were "imminent" and coming in "a day or two."

Democrats in Congress have demanded that reversing recent Medicaid cuts and extending expiring Affordable Health Care Act subsidies be included in any funding bill to reopen the government. But Republicans say they won't entertain any changes to health care policy until the shutdown is over.

The standoff has resulted in the Senate voting eight times to defeat dueling bills to reopen the government.

In addition to mass firings of federal workers, Trump has also threatened to block back pay of federal workers and to cut "Democrat programs" from the government if Democrats don't join Republicans to end the shutdown.

“We're going to be cutting some very popular Democrat programs that aren't popular with Republicans, frankly, because that's the way this works," Trump said on Oct. 9. "They wanted to do this, so we'll give them a little taste of their own medicine."

Reach Joey Garrison on X @joeygarrison.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: President Trump begins mass layoffs of federal workers amid government shutdown

Reporting by Joey Garrison, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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