A federal judge issued an emergency order to halt temporarily the Trump administration’s permanent layoffs of federal workers.

The Trump administration has used threats of mass layoffs of government workers as one of its key pieces of leverage against Democrats in an effort to force an end to the government shutdown on favorable terms. On Wednesday, Susan Illston, a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, sided with two unions suing the administration to prevent the firings.