A federal judge in San Francisco ordered the Trump administration on Wednesday to rehire, with back pay, about 675 employees who were laid off during and immediately after the government shutdown.

The administration violated a resolution by the Republican-controlled Congress, and signed by President Donald Trump, requiring reinstatement of the dismissed workers, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said in issuing a preliminary injunction requiring their reinstatement through at least Jan. 30. 

She cited a statement in the resolution that between Nov. 12, when Congress reached a budget agreement that ended the 43-day shutdown, and Jan. 30, “no federal funds may be used to initiate, carry out, implement, or otherwise notice a reduction in force.”

Trump’s Justice Department argued that the language prohibited only a new “notice” of further dismissals. But Illston said words such as “carry out” and “implement” meant that laid-off employees must be rehired and paid what they were owed since Sept. 30.

The fired workers were employed by the State Department, Education Department, Small Business Administration and General Services Administration. 

Some State Department employees, including foreign service workers stationed overseas, received emails on a Monday in early December saying they would be terminated that Friday, Illston said. She said some SBA workers who were laid off during the shutdown were notified of their reinstatement on Nov. 17, then were told the next day that they were again out of work.

Besides their loss of pay, the judge wrote, “the loss of health insurance coverage poses a risk that cannot be retroactively repaired through backpay. Affected employees describe being in treatment for cancer, having chronic medical conditions, and forgoing treatment for themselves and their babies due to lack of insurance coverage.”

In a separate case, Illston, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, ordered a halt in October to the Trump administration’s mass firings of workers during the shutdown.

Wednesday’s ruling drew sighs of relief from unions representing the employees.

“When Congress voted to end the longest government shutdown in history, it spoke clearly and unambiguously that further reductions-in-force were prohibited, and any RIFs that occurred during the shutdown were required to be reversed,” Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, the lead plaintiff in the case, said in a statement. “The administration’s continued defiance of that mandate is part of a troubling pattern of egregious actions against federal employees and the American public.”

The workers were also represented by the American Foreign Service Association and the National Federation of Federal Employees. All three unions are taking part in the separate suit against the mass firings.

Trump administration officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. They could appeal the ruling.