A United States federal judge on Wednesday temporarily barred the Trump administration from proceeding with plans to lay off federal workers amid the ongoing government shutdown.

The ruling follows the administration’s issuance of reduction-in-force notices to over 4,000 employees just five days earlier.

“The activities that are being undertaken here are contrary to the laws,” San Francisco U.S. District Court Judge Susan Yvonne Illston told lawyers for the administration on Wednesday at a hearing where she issued the temporary restraining order.

“You can’t do this in a nation of laws,” Illston said.

Two unions representing tens of thousands of federal employees had petitioned Judge Illston to stop the planned reductions in force.

The Trump administration had warned of layoffs during the shutdown, while President Donald Trump repeatedly stated that the cuts were directed at “Democrat agencies” or programs.

Illston accused the Trump administration of exploiting the lapse in government funding, saying it had “taken advantage of the shutdown to assume that the laws no longer apply to them and that they can reshape the government as they see fit.”

The judge added that she believed the unions were likely to prove that the Trump administration’s actions were unlawful and “arbitrary and capricious.”

Democracy Forward, the advocacy group representing the unions in court, welcomed the judge’s ruling.