Axed federal employees sit on Capitol steps urging lawmakers to protect public services they used to provide

Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., began her remarks to roughly 40 recently laid off or fired federal employees who assembled on the steps of the Capitol Building on Tuesday with “Hello everybody! How are you?”

But after a brief pause, Dean added, “Well, that was a dumb question.”

Dozens of former federal employees have been meeting weekly on Tuesdays on Capitol Hill to urge members of Congress to reverse President Donald Trump’s staff and programs cuts across government, which often have been carried out by the Elon Musk-backed Department of Government Efficiency. 

On Tuesday, the group held a sit-in on the Capitol steps, as Democratic members of Congress urged them to continue their advocacy.  

“I can say that we’re going to go back into Congress and do everything that we can. And that’s going to be slightly meaningless to say that I’m going to go in there and do that,” said Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa. “What I’m going to promise is I’m going to go out and do it. I’m going to tell your stories outside so that people understand what this administration is actually doing, so they know whose side they’re supposed to be on.” 

Many of the former feds in attendance said that they lost their dream jobs when their positions were cut. 

Sabrina Valenti, for example, was motivated to work for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration after respectively growing up in and working for the hurricane-prone states of Florida and Louisiana. Her career at the agency ended when she received a termination notice for a job that she didn’t have.

“When I received the paper copy, it said that my profession is research biologist, and biology is my worst subject in school,” she said. “I've been a budget analyst for over seven years, so they couldn't even fire me right.” 

Valenti worked for the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act Program, which helps to restore wetlands and barrier islands that shield Louisiana from hurricanes. 

“Anybody on the Gulf Coast knows that the more land there is between you and a hurricane, the safer you are from that hurricane. Because the land puts the brakes on the storm. So the more land you can build in south Louisiana, the stronger your brakes are and the less Louisianans are at risk,” she said. “Without me in that position, money at NOAA is not getting out the door to go to Louisiana's Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority. Barrier islands that should have been built are not going to be. Evacuation routes for hurricanes that run along the levees are going to be overtopped by flooding when a storm hits because the work that my agency does can't get done anymore.”

The Commerce Department, NOAA’s parent agency, did not respond to a request for comment. 

Another budget analyst, Mack Schroeder, worked at the Health and Human Services Department’s Administration for Community Living, which supports Meals on Wheels among other programs for older adults and people with disabilities. 

He’s passionate about improving the efficiency of social services but lost his job during the mass firing of probationary employees, who are generally those who have been hired within the last one to two years and have fewer job protections. 

Certain federal judges had ordered that fired probationary employees be brought back, but those directives have since been paused. Schroeder said that he is currently on paid administrative leave. 

“It's been two months, in the name of efficiency, to not work while getting fully paid,” he said. 

In his advocacy, Schroeder went viral because of a video in which he confronts Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., about his firing. Banks told him that he “probably deserved” to lose his job because he “seems like a clown.”  

Some of the members of Congress who spoke to the former feds at the sit-in weren’t scheduled. Sens. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., talked with attendees after being called over. On the other hand, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., walked in the other direction after hearing that they were fired government workers. 

Several lawmakers asked the former feds what actions they would like Congress to take. Many urged the representatives and senators to ensure work that they had been performing, such as food safety inspections and international HIV prevention, will continue despite the workforce cuts. 

Cameron Hilaker — who was an emergency manager for the U.S. Agency for International Development, which the Trump administration has nearly eliminated — said he is concerned about the safety of overseas employees who have to return to the U.S. due to losing their jobs. 

“During COVID, it was an absolute s—show. And every foreign service officer would tell you that,” he said. “Now we're doing it again with less people because the entire agency has been dismantled.” 

Hilaker said he will officially be laid off on July 1 under reduction-in-force procedures; although, he was originally told that his last day would be April 30 and at one point was outright fired because of his probationary employee status.

He and his wife, who is also a federal employee, are expecting their first child in June, which adds stress to the uncertainty. 

“It’s completely disheartening to go into public service because we believe in the greater good and we believe in serving our country and to have that thrown back in our face, and to put our family's livelihoods at risk is just incredibly shameful and a really embarrassing moment in our nation's history,” Hilaker said.