By Jack Queen

March 6 (Reuters) - New York’s attorney general and 19 others filed a lawsuit Thursday night against the Trump administration’s mass firings of some federal workers, the first entry of states into the legal fight over the president’s efforts to slash the bureaucracy.

The lawsuit in Maryland federal court - filed jointly with California, Arizona, Colorado and other Democrat-led states - alleges President Donald Trump illegally fired tens of thousands of federal workers. It asks the court to reinstate those workers and halt the administration from firing additional employees illegally.

Trump, a Republican, faces additional lawsuits by fired federal workers and has suffered recent legal setbacks as he and Tesla TLSA.O CEO Elon Musk engage in a lightning campaign to root out what they describe as fraud and waste in government.

In their complaint on Thursday, the states allege the Trump administration violated laws and regulations for laying off federal workers by failing to notify them in advance and firing them without justification.

“The Trump administration’s illegal mass firings of federal workers are a slap in the face to those who have spent their careers serving our country,” New York Attorney General Letitia said in a statement.

A judge overseeing a similar case on February 27 temporarily barred the Trump administration from directing the U.S. Department of Defense and other agencies to fire new hires en masse.

And on March 6, a judge reinstated a Democratic member of the National Labor Relations Board fired by Trump. The next day, a board that oversees the federal workforce reinstated thousands of fired workers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

(Reporting by Jack Queen; Editing by Christopher Cushing)

((Jack.Queen@thomsonreuters.com;))