ALSO SEE: Judge Blocks Mass Layoffs at CFPB in the Latest Twist Over the Fate of the Agency

A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from gutting an independent agency tasked with protecting people from financial fraud.

During a Friday hearing, District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, an Obama appointee, said she was “deeply concerned” about President Donald Trump’s attempt to fire almost all of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) employees.

Jackson previously ordered the Trump administration to halt attempts to dismantle the CFPB until she rules on the merits of a lawsuit from union groups and consumer protection organizations seeking to preserve the bureau.

Yesterday, the Trump administration sent layoff notices to around 1,500 of the CFPB’s 1,700 workers, saying the workers’ access to the bureau’s computer systems would be cut off on Friday evening.

After the notices were sent, plaintiffs in the case asked Jackson to intervene, arguing that the mass firings would violate her previous order by preventing the bureau from carrying out its congressionally mandated duties.

“It is unfathomable that cutting the Bureau’s staff by 90 percent in just 24 hours, with no notice to people to prepare for that elimination, would not ‘interfere with the performance’ of its statutory duties,” the plaintiffs said in a filing Thursday.

Jackson said during the hearing that she would not allow the Trump administration to follow through with the layoffs and scheduled a hearing for April 28 to receive testimony from officials directing the effort.