Multiple FEMA staff put on leave after letter criticizing Trump admin
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President Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in Ochopee, Florida, on July 1. Photo: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images
Multiple FEMA staff who signed an open letter criticizing the Trump administration's budget cuts to disaster preparedness were placed on leave Tuesday, the Washington Post first reported.
The big picture: Among the workers who signed the letter are "individuals who were directly helping relief efforts in Kerr County, Texas" following July's deadly floods, said a spokesperson for Stand Up for Science, the nonprofit that publicized the declaration, in a Tuesday night email that called the administration's action "illegal."
Driving the news: The letter warns against cuts to FEMA, opposes administration moves to end climate change research and criticizes officials including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose department oversees the agency, for their leadership decisions.
- A total of 182 FEMA staff signed the letter to the Federal Emergency Management Agency Review Council and Congress, and 36 of them included their names.
Zoom in: The Stand Up for Science spokesperson shared a statement on behalf of the advocacy group calling the administration's decision to place the staff on leave was retaliation against civil servants for whistleblowing, which it said "is both illegal and a deep betrayal of the most dedicated among us."
- Stand Up for Science's statement added, "DHS said that these employees are simply 'afraid of change' which is an insult to anyone working at FEMA, the agency directly responsive to rapidly intensifying and changing circumstances. ... we stand by the FEMA 36."
- In a Bluesky post, the group wrote: "Donald Trump and Kristi Noem may be content with more Americans dying from natural disasters, but we're not. The courageous FEMA staff who wrote the Katrina Declaration will not be silenced."
Context: The FEMA workers penned the letter, dubbed the "Katrina Declaration," days ahead of the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and referenced the catastrophe.
- They wrote that they hoped their warning would "come in time to prevent not only another national catastrophe like Hurricane Katrina, but the effective dissolution of FEMA itself and the abandonment of the American people such an event would represent."
What they're saying: "It is not surprising that some of the same bureaucrats who presided over decades of inefficiency are now objecting to reform," a FEMA spokesperson said in an emailed statement Wednesday.
- "Change is always hard. It is especially for those invested in the status quo, who have forgotten that their duty is to the American people not entrenched bureaucracy," the spokesperson added.
- "Our obligation is to survivors, not to protecting broken systems. Under the leadership of Secretary Noem, FEMA will return to its mission of assisting Americans at their most vulnerable."
Flashback: The Environmental Protection Agency last month placed dozens of workers on leave after they signed a "declaration of dissent" against what they called the EPA's "unraveling" of health and environmental protections for political reasons.
Go deeper: Governors accuse Trump admin of stalling disaster recovery
Editor's note: This article has been updated with FEMA comment.
