Republicans signal targeted federal hiring surge and easier firing as priorities in the next Congress

Even without the business of the 118th Congress wrapped up and a government shutdown looming, Republican lawmakers are making demands and prognostications for their top priorities when the 119th iteration takes office in January. 

Those efforts will include a massive hiring surge for the Homeland Security Department, a group of Republicans said on Wednesday, noting it will help President-elect Trump fulfill his promise of mass deportations and closing down the U.S.-Mexico border. 

A group of more than two dozen senators and House members, led by Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., said one of the first efforts the new Congress will undertake will be a immigration-based package that adds funding to hire thousands of agents and officers for Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They plan to approve the spending under a process known as “reconciliation,” which would enable the measure to pass with a simple majority in the Senate. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who is set to chair the Senate Budget Committee through which all reconciliation bills must pass, signed his name to the letter making the demands to House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. 

Trump has vowed to initiate an unprecedented deportation push upon taking office, saying he would quickly remove any restrictions on who ICE agents can pursue. The effort is expected to come with a sizable price tag, though the lawmakers said their efforts would be paid for through cuts to mandatory spending. 

“We need money for more Border Patrol agents,” Scott told reporters on Wednesday. “We need money for ICE agents to do the deportations.” 

Scott joined all but four of his Senate Republican colleagues earlier this year in voting against a bipartisan border security package that would have added 1,500 CBP personnel and 1,200 ICE agents, in addition to 4,300 U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services employees to process asylum claims more quickly. 

Trump himself has vowed to hire 10,000 new Border Patrol agents, saying he would use various pay raises and bonuses to overcome longstanding attrition issues. Border Patrol has failed to meet its hiring goals for several years and has seen the size of its workforce decline despite a growth in its authorized staffing level. That is despite the agency successfully implementing reforms to ease its hiring, offering recruiting incentives between $20,000 and $30,000 and issuing retention and relocation incentives in some areas. 

DHS officials have said negative opinions of law enforcement in general and CBP in particular, increased demands on the workforce, worse work-life balance, reduced physical fitness among the general population and the remote locations and extreme weather conditions in many areas their employees work all have contributed to the recruiting issues.

Trump’s efforts to dramatically increase ICE and Border Patrol in his first term largely petered out, though he did eventually oversee modest growth. 

On a more governmentwide basis, House Republicans are vowing to follow Trump’s lead in easing the firing of federal employees. In a Washington Times op-ed published Wednesday, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., who chairs the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, confirmed his intentions to codify efforts to significantly reduce federal employee telework and limit civil service protections for federal workers. Comer previously disclosed his plans in interviews with Government Executive. 

Comer said Trump will “bring the bureaucracy to heel” by implementing Schedule F via executive order, a policy that would enable agencies to treat federal workers as at-will employees and quickly fire them for political reasons. 

“We will complement the president’s executive order with legislation that brings lasting reform and accountability,” Comer said. 

He added he will shepherd through legislation that requires federal employees to show up to their workstations at least as often as they did before the COVID-19 pandemic. That allows for more telework than plans suggested by tech entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy—the co-leaders of Trump’s government efficiency commission—who have said federal employees should report to their offices five days per week. 

A recent review by the Office of Management and Budget found about 80% of the federal work hours are currently spent in-person and more than half of federal employees do not telework at all because their jobs are not conducive to it. Of those who do telework, employees on average spent about 60% of their time on site.

Comer also said he would work to ensure the president has more reorganizing authority, making it easier for Trump to reshape federal agencies and offices. His proposals would require an up-or-down vote in Congress, Comer said.