More than 400 workers at the Department of Homeland Security were let go by the Trump administration on Friday, the most recent step in a broader attempt to drastically cut the federal workforce.
After supervisors discovered “non-mission critical personnel in probationary status” in the Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which oversees the country’s legal immigration system, and the nation’s top cybersecurity agency, known as CISA, among other agencies, DHS officials said they had fired hundreds of workers across multiple agencies.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, we are making sweeping cuts and reform across the federal government to eliminate egregious waste and incompetence that has been happening for decades at the expense of the American taxpayer,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin stated.
According to McLaughlin, the department is “actively identifying other wasteful positions and offices that do not do not fulfill DHS’ mission.”
He also stated that the personnel layoffs will save about $50 million and be “incalculably valuable” to the administration’s efforts to reduce red tape.
The country’s disaster relief agency, FEMA, has laid off more than 200 employees in all. The cuts come after DHS said earlier this week that four FEMA workers would be let off for paying New York City back for migrant lodging expenses.
The transactions, which have been a regular compensation scheme that offsets costs to care for a spike in migration along the southern border, were allegedly made by the employees by evading agency leadership.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has seen more than 130 layoffs as part of the mass firings.
CISA, one of the newest federal agencies, was created in 2018 during the first Trump administration to lead a nationwide initiative to monitor physical and cyber threats to critical infrastructure in the United States.
The main cyber agency’s responsibilities include securing U.S. electoral infrastructure in collaboration with states and local governments.
A dozen U.S. Coast Guard members who are presently on administrative leave have also been offered a new assignment at the southwest border by the government to bolster border security efforts. A team devoted to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives within the Coast Guard workforce was previously comprised of such service members.
Nearly 50 employees of USCIS, which handles a wide range of immigration benefit applications, such as petitions for citizenship, green cards, asylum, and work permits, as well as 10 more employees from DHS’ Science and Technology Directorate, are being let off.
Notably, Friday’s firings did not affect Customs and Border Protection or Immigration and Customs Enforcement, two sizable DHS agencies that are at the forefront of President Trump’s well reported campaign against illegal immigration.
The executive order, which Mr. Trump signed on Tuesday, instructs agency leaders to prepare for “large-scale reductions in force.”
According to administration officials, Office of Personnel Management officials met with department chiefs throughout the government on Thursday and gave them instructions to start firing workers who are still on probation.
After being employed, federal employees usually stay on probation for one to two years. This status gives them some safeguards at work but also makes it simpler to fire them.
The Trump administration has taken strong action to terminate federal workers, the majority of whom were recently hired, across a number of agencies, including the U.S. Forest Service, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the departments of Education and Veterans Affairs.
At the U.S. Agency for International Development, which disburses the foreign aid that the Trump administration has attempted to halt, it has also been in charge of a massive staff purge.
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The mass firings by Trump appointees have been coordinated with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, a project spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk that has placed officials in various departments to reduce government bureaucracy and freeze funds that are thought to be unnecessary.
Mr. Trump told reporters from the Oval Office on Tuesday that his administration had discovered “billions and billions of dollars in waste, fraud, and abuse,” but he provided scant supporting documentation.
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Musk demanded on Thursday that the United States “mind its own business” occasionally overseas and “delete entire agencies” at home.
Speaking to audiences in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, via video conference at the World Government Summit 2025, Musk stated, “I think we do need to delete entire agencies as opposed to leave a lot of them behind.”
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