‘Where is this so-called efficiency?’ Current and former FEMA employees protest Trump overhauls to disaster agency

Current and former Federal Emergency Management Agency employees and their supporters struggled through the multisyllabic chant “replace the unqualified administrator” during a protest on Friday outside of the disaster agency’s Washington, D.C., headquarters. 

The appointment of David Richardson as the senior official performing the duties of FEMA administrator, after previously serving in the Homeland Security Department’s Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office, is one of several overhauls that President Donald Trump has made to the agency that disaster workers have criticized. 

More than 190 FEMA employees in August signed the Katrina Declaration, arguing that changes the Trump administration were making to the agency were unraveling reforms implemented following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. 

Since then, the letter’s more than 30 public signers have been on paid administrative leave. Senior House Democrats on Tuesday requested that the DHS inspector general look into whether reported disciplinary investigations into these individuals violate whistleblower protections. 

“The agency has always believed in and worked toward meaningful change — change that is backed in evidence and research and designed to serve the public,” said Phoenix Gibson, one of the declaration’s signatories, at Friday's protest. “The agency has worked hard to modernize processes, strengthen culture and better serve communities during their most vulnerable moments. We are watching the undoing of that progress now.” 

Gibson told reporters after the protest that she had been working with about 500 applicants for assistance across three disasters in Iowa. But because she was placed on leave, staffers working on other disasters have had to cover that workload. 

Similarly, EPA suspended nearly 140 employees who signed a letter criticizing the agency’s new direction under Trump. At least eight of those individuals have since been fired. 

Trump administration officials have repeatedly characterized FEMA as ineffective and said they want states to play a greater role in disaster response. 

But several speakers at the protest pointed to recent administration actions they argue have weakened the agency:

• FEMA, which has experienced staffing shortages for years, has shed roughly 2,450 employees, 9.5% of the workforce, since the start of Trump’s second term, mostly through his administration's voluntary separation programs. 
• Hundreds of agency human resources and security staffers have been reassigned to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is spearheading the president’s mass deportation agenda. 
• DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s policy of personally approving expenses that are more than $100,000 resulted in the temporary firing of contractors who staff disaster assistance lines while floods were impacting Texas, according to a July report from The New York Times. 

“Where is this so-called efficiency?” asked Jeremy Edwards, who served as the agency’s press secretary and deputy director of public affairs during the Biden administration. “What single policy have they put into place that has made FEMA more nimble in its mission?”

FEMA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Robert Autrey, who worked at FEMA for nearly 43 years, urged members of the public to oppose efforts to weaken the agency. 

“You have had people that have came before you, that have helped you, and now we got to do the same today, to help the people that is coming behind us,” he said. “We cannot let this happen.”