Disability advocates are suing the Social Security Administration over “reckless and devastating” changes imposed by the Trump administration that they say are undermining the agency’s ability to serve beneficiaries.

The lawsuit filed early this month in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia comes after the agency announced it would shed 7,000 of its 57,000 workers, close its Office of Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity and its Office of Transformation, consolidate regional offices and require that more services be handled in person.

“The defendants’ actions are an unprecedented and unconstitutional assault on Social Security benefits, concealed beneath the hollow pretense of bureaucratic ‘reform,'” the complaint states.

In nine weeks, the Trump administration has “upended the agency,” moving more responsibilities to overloaded field offices while cutting back on telephone services, resulting in “a systematic dismantling of SSA’s core functions,” advocates allege in the suit. “The defendants’ actions will stoke deeper delays in processing applications for benefits, shackle access to critical accommodations, and, in many cases, strip individuals of any means to file grievances. The individuals who bear the brunt of this bureaucratic neglect are precisely those the defendants are entrusted to protect and serve — people with disabilities.”

The suit, which alleges violations of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Administrative Procedure Act and the U.S. Constitution, was brought by the American Association of People with Disabilities, the National Federation of the Blind, Deaf Equality, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, the Massachusetts Senior Action Council and seven people with disabilities.

In addition to the Social Security agency, the suit names Acting Social Security Commissioner Leland Dudek, the Department of Government Efficiency Service, or DOGE, Acting Administrator of DOGE Amy Gleason and Elon Musk in his capacity as the “de facto leader” of DOGE.

“Americans with disabilities deserve a functioning Social Security system, not arbitrary shutdowns and inaccessible service,” said Maria Town, president and CEO of AAPD. “We filed this lawsuit because disabled Americans are already suffering — and without urgent court intervention, the harm will only grow.”

With the lawsuit, the advocates are asking the court to reverse course on the layoffs, the closure of the Office of Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity and the Office of Transformation and other recent changes that they say limit access to services for Social Security beneficiaries with disabilities.

Officials with the Social Security Administration did not respond to a request for comment.

More than 73 million Americans receive Social Security, Supplemental Security Income or both each month, including over 11 million people with disabilities.