Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, LITIGATION NEWS, TRENDS—Lawsuit targets Trump administration’s dismantling of Social Security Administration, (Apr 3, 2025)

By Patricia K. Ruiz, J.D.

The plaintiffs seek a preliminary injunction to prevent reduced access to SSA programs and services.

Individuals with disabilities depending on Social Security benefits to meet their basic needs brought an action in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the Trump administration challenging the “unprecedented and unconstitutional assault on Social Security benefits, concealed beneath the hollow pretense of bureaucratic ‘reform.’” The plaintiffs identified the elimination of two key Social Security Administration (SSA) offices that enable the SSA to meet the needs of beneficiaries with disabilities—the Office of Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity (OCREO) and the Office of Transformation.

Dismantling the SSA. By reducing or consolidating offices, slashing the workforce by 7,000 employees, imposing a hiring freeze while reducing overtime, and placing new burdens on the agency’s local offices, the administration has systematically dismantled the SSA’s core functions, “abandoning millions of Americans to poverty and indignity.” The complaint argues that the defendants’ actions will stoke deeper delays in processing applications for benefits, impede access to critical accommodations, and strip individuals of the means to file grievances. People with disabilities “bear the brunt of this bureaucratic neglect,” the complaint states.

Violations; relief sought. The actions of the Trump administration to dismantle the SSA violate the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Administrative Procedure Act, and the U.S. Constitution, the complaint argues, and “[t]his unchecked assertion of authority, unmoored from legal constraint, demands immediate redress.” The plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief “to halt the unlawful and unconscionable restrictions on beneficiary access to Social Security’s essential service and to ensure that the [SSA] is compelled to fulfill its statutory duty, preserving both its purpose and its obligation to the people it was created to serve.”

Preliminary injunction. The plaintiffs filed a motion for preliminary injunction preventing the administration from violating the Rehabilitation Act and the Administrative Procedure Act, arguing that injunctive relief is necessary to revoke the elimination of the OCREO and the Office of Transformation within the SSA, revoke the reduction of SSA offices, cease the mass termination of SSA employees, and roll back recent policies increasing applicants’ and beneficiaries’ need to seek services in person until the administration can ensure doing so will not result in reduced access to SSA programs and services.

The plaintiffs argued a preliminary injunction is necessary because they are likely to succeed on the merits in demonstrating that the administration’s actions to dismantle the SSA disproportionately impact people with disabilities, who are likely to suffer irreparable injury if they are unable to timely obtain the protections and services of the SSA; that the administration’s actions threaten the plaintiffs’ rights to protection from discrimination, to fair administrative procedures, and to due process; that these injuries far outweigh any damage or inconvenience to the administration; and that ensuring the plaintiffs are given an accessible way to file discrimination complaints with and receive timely services from the SSA is well within the public interest, as it promotes the fair and equal access to Social Security benefits.

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