At the Agriculture Department’s Food Safety Inspection Service sources say that job offers are being rescinded and the hiring that is advancing is subject to intense scrutiny. Preston Keres/USDA via Flickr
Trump exempted public safety roles from his hiring freeze. Federal firefighters, prison guards and food inspectors wonder why they don’t count.
Current and former employees say public safety agencies are still freezing hiring they claim to have exempted and liken the approach to a 'self-imposed gunshot wound to the head.'
President Trump’s order to freeze federal hiring is sweeping up even jobs he ostensibly intended to exempt from the pause, leaving employees and impacted communities worried about the spread of wildfires, outbreaks of food-borne illnesses and other safety issues
Trump's order carved out any positions “related to immigration enforcement, national security, or public safety.” At key agencies with roles fitting those descriptions, however, agencies have either not issued exemptions or are hesitating to implement the exceptions they have received.
The U.S. Forest Service plays a lead role in federal firefighting, and the agency said it has exempted those positions from the hiring freeze. As the agency prepares for peak fire season this summer, however, several employees inside the agency and those others who work with it directly said that no hiring was taking place as of now.
“The hiring freeze is 100% happening right now,” said one current USFS employee.
Fire captains reported to that employee that they could not make any seasonal hires and even those who come back each season were in limbo, waiting to learn if they would be rehired.
The Forest Service in at least some cases has also revoked job offers it had already sent out, a staffer at a conservation group that works closely with USFS and other land management agencies said. Steve Gutierrez, a long-time USFS firefighter, said only new hires with start dates before Feb. 8 were allowed to onboard.
“All personnel is frozen,” he said, adding the policy would have a “trickle-down effect” as employees are not moving up the chain of command to help manage fires. “Without qualified personnel,” he added, USFS “can’t staff fire engines [and] can’t staff hotshot crews.”
Cat McRae, a USFS spokesperson, said employees did not have a “correct understanding” of the hiring situation and “USDA has been actively working with OPM on its wildland firefighting positions.”
A USFS official who elaborated further on the agency’s efforts said it is engaged in planning for all scenarios as it normally would.
Bobbie Scopa, a long-time federal firefighter and former USFS operations section chief who now advocates for her former colleague as part of Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, said personnel had expected a freeze exemption but one has yet to take hold. That has led to widespread confusion, she said, and a big hit to morale.
“This is the time of year that offers are being made to the temporary workforce, as well as the permanent positions that are vacant right now,” she said. “Those offers are not being made.”
Seasonal employees who typically return to USFS year after year are currently “in limbo,” Scopa said, and may decide not to wait “for the feds to get their act together” and instead join a state or local fire department. As a result, she said, engine modules, hotshot crews and Initial Action crews will go short staffed.
“We may have a lot fewer staffed engines and a lot fewer staffed crews due to all this mess, this self-imposed gunshot wound to the head,” Scopa said.
At the Agriculture Department’s Food Safety Inspection Service, employees have also been told their agency is exempt from the freeze. In practice, however, job offers are being rescinded and the hiring that is advancing is subject to intense scrutiny. Each position FSIS wants to fill needs an Office of Personnel Management sign off at each step of the hiring process, according to an employee briefed on the situation, including getting the job posted, creating a list of qualified candidates, sending an offer and setting a start state.
An email sent by FSIS human resources staff to agency supervisors that was obtained by Government Executive said new hires set for orientation this week may be “on hold due to the hiring freeze.” Internal employees starting new roles “may be affected as well,” the email said. A subsequent email stated new employee orientation had been “put on hold.”
A USDA spokesperson said FSIS is “continuing to hire the workforce necessary to ensure the safety and adequate supply of food to fulfill our statutory mission.”
Advocacy groups also warned that a hiring freeze could accelerate efforts to give industry more control over their own inspections. Fewer federal inspectors lead to more self-policing, said Jim Walsh, policy director at Food and Water Watch, which in turn leads to increased risk of contamination. A new outbreak of bird flu is currently impacting cattle and poultry across the country.
“A hiring freeze at FSIS puts public health at risk by preventing the agency from hiring qualified staff to fill critical roles in our nation’s food safety systems, and forcing them to hire private contractors to fill the gaps,” Walsh said. “With USDA privatization, oversight and accountability suffer.”
Scott Taylor, a spokesman for the Bureau of Prisons, said all law enforcement positions at the agency have been exempted from the freeze but hiring still remains paused. The federal jobs site, USAJOBS, had no listings for BOP as of Monday morning.
“We are currently awaiting guidance from the [Justice Department] on when we can begin reposting our jobs to USAJOBS,” Taylor said.
Employees who spoke to Government Executive noted that understaffing is a longstanding issue in the bureau that will be exacerbated by the freeze and the administration’s recent, unusual decision to house Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees within BOP facilities.
The National Park Service has also frozen hiring across the country and seasonal onboarding for its busy season is not currently taking place. One NPS employee said hiring efforts for law enforcement personnel have been canceled and new staff he had planned to send to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center had their offers rescinded. The agency had been supplementing shortfalls in permanent law enforcement staff with seasonal employees, he said, but now that hiring is frozen. The employee called the situation "dangerous" and said parks' ability to provide emergency medical services and rescue services would be compromised.
“Many of the employees given offers [that were] rescinded are now going to look for something else to do with their lives,” the NPS employee said. “The more that time passes, the more difficult it will be to try and fix this situation.”
Some agencies have implemented widespread exemptions from Trump’s order, including the departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security.
The current pause across several agencies has drawn the attention of Democrats in Congress. More than 20 Democratic senators said in a letter to Interior Department Secretary Doug Burgum that NPS had revoked "thousands of job offers" to seasonal workers and the freeze would exacerbate staffing losses the agency has suffered over the last 15 years.
“Without seasonal staff during this peak season, visitor centers may close, bathrooms will be filthy, campgrounds may close, guided tours will be cut back or altogether cancelled, emergency response times will drop, and visitor services like safety advice, trail recommendations, and interpretation will be unavailable,” the senators said.
Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., on Friday wrote to Trump administration leaders seeking clarity on the impact of Trump’s hiring freeze on federal firefighters and what shortfalls might exist for fire season. He also asked how many firefighters accepted the administration’s “deferred resignation” offer and—following USDA sending warning letters to impacted employees—whether those still in their probationary periods were at risk of being fired.
“I am deeply concerned that the hiring freeze will leave Californians and communities in fire-prone areas around the United States vulnerable,” Schiff said. “Any stalling of the lengthy process puts both federal forested land and Californians at risk.”
Many are now worried about both the short and long-term implications of the freeze. The National Parks Conservation Association said the impact could be “devastating and long-lasting,” and suggested Ranger-led programs, resource protection, maintenance, trash pickup and visitor needs could suffer. Scopa, the former firefighter, said she is concerned about the impact any reduction in hiring could have on USFS employees. Those firefighters spend several months at a time going from fire to fire, she said, working 16-hour days and two-to-three weeks straight.
“You’re talking about a workforce that is overworked and underpaid and underappreciated,” Scopa said.
She added she was anxious about what the approach portends for the Forest Service.
“If you purposely were trying to destroy an agency’s ability to get its work done, this is what you would do,” she said.