How the San Antonio Missions are impacted by federal cuts
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Mission Concepción seen behind a National Park Service sign. Photo: Edwin Remsberg/VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
The San Antonio Missions are among the National Park Service sites affected by Trump administration cutbacks.
Why it matters: The Missions generate about $150 million for the San Antonio economy, per the NPS. The national park is the only UNESCO World Heritage Site in Texas.
- The firings have left fewer workers to do critical jobs ahead of the busy travel season.
State of play: More than 750 U.S. national park workers have been fired amid the Trump administration's purge of federal employees, per an unofficial tally shared with Axios by a park ranger. That includes at least one San Antonio Missions employee.
- Axios San Antonio previously reported that five people at Big Bend National Park, two at Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park in the Hill Country and two at Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park in Brownsville lost their jobs.
Zoom in: Ranger Sanya Marin told Texas Public Radio last week she was terminated from her job at the Missions because she was a probationary employee. She said she was one of the few bilingual park guides there.
- This week, the National Parks Conservation Association reported that the Trump administration is planning to terminate the lease for a law enforcement facility for the San Antonio Missions.
- The facility houses employees who manage first response and other public safety functions; maintenance; information technology; equipment storage; and artifacts, per the NPCA.
- "These closures will cripple the Park Service's ability to operate parks safely and will mean millions of irreplaceable artifacts will be left vulnerable or worse, lost," Theresa Pierno, CEO of the NPCA, said in a statement.
Zoom out: Florida's Everglades National Park (15 workers fired), Virginia's Shenandoah National Park (15) and New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns National Park (14) are among the hardest hit locations across the U.S. National Park Service (NPS), per the tally.
- That's according to a spreadsheet shared with Axios by a U.S. park ranger who requested anonymity to protect their job and employment prospects.
- The spreadsheet is based on reports from hundreds of rangers and other park workers in multiple online groups.
Caveat: Because it's a crowdsourced effort, the document is likely incomplete and undercounts the full breadth of the firings.
- The NPCA, an independent parks advocacy group, says more than 1,000 park staffers were fired on Feb. 14.
The other side: NPS "is hiring seasonal workers to continue enhancing the visitor experience as we embrace new opportunities for optimization and innovation in workforce management," a spokesperson said in a statement.
- NPS did not provide a count of firings by park and did not comment on the tally in the spreadsheet.