FEMA workers put on leave after signing letter warning of Trump’s overhaul of the agency

By Gabe Cohen, CNN

(CNN) — The Federal Emergency Management Agency on Tuesday placed several employees on administrative leave effective immediately, just one day after they signed an open letter warning Congress that the Trump administration’s sweeping overhaul of the agency could lead to catastrophic failures in disaster response.

Titled “Katrina Declaration,” the letter accuses President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose department oversees FEMA, of undermining the agency’s capabilities, ignoring its congressionally mandated authority and appointing unqualified leadership. The group calls for FEMA to be shielded from political interference and for its workforce to be protected from politically motivated firings.

Of the more than 180 current and former FEMA staffers who signed the letter, most did so anonymously. Only 36 signed publicly, though it’s unclear how many were still employed when the letter was released.

Among them was Virginia Case, a supervisory management and program analyst, who told CNN she received notice Tuesday evening that she’d been placed on paid leave.

“I’m disappointed but not surprised,” Case said, adding that she was aware of at least six other FEMA workers who received similar emails. “I’m also proud of those of us who stood up, regardless of what it might mean for our jobs. The public deserves to know what’s happening, because lives and communities will suffer if this continues.”

Workers who are placed on leave “will conduct no business, visit no FEMA/DHS facility and contact no FEMA/DHS personnel,” according to an email to FEMA employees reviewed by CNN.

Employees were also ordered to share their personal email addresses because access to their FEMA/DHS accounts had been suspended.

“It is not surprising that some of the same bureaucrats who presided over decades of inefficiency are now objecting to reform. 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,” a FEMA spokesperson said in a statement to CNN. “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.”

The “Katrina Declaration” letter warns that critical reforms enacted after the failed response to Hurricane Katrina are being unraveled, as the Trump administration moves to either abolish or drastically shrink FEMA’s role.

The move echoes actions taken earlier this summer, when the Trump administration suspended roughly 140 employees from the Environmental Protection Agency days after they signed a public letter raising concerns about the treatment of federal workers and the Trump administration’s regulations on climate and public health.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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