FEMA Employees Reassigned to ICE

Source: American Prospect

FEMA Employees Reassigned to ICE

Probationary employees who had been on paid leave were told to report to ICE within seven days or lose their jobs. It could signal problems with ICE recruitment.

BY DAVID DAYEN AUGUST 6, 2025

A number of employees with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) were informed via email late on Tuesday that they have been reassigned, effective immediately, to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The workers had seven days to accept the reassignment, under threat of being removed from the civil service.

According to sources familiar with the matter, those reassigned were probationary employees with less than one year at FEMA, who because of presumed weaker civil service protections were fired early in the Trump administration but reinstated after a court order. Like at many federal agencies, these employees had been on paid administrative leave for months, among the over 100,000 men and women across the federal government who have been collecting a salary yet doing no work.

But now, these probationary FEMA employees on leave are apparently being shifted as a stopgap maneuver to bolster the ranks of ICE, which received tens of billions of dollars in the GOP mega-bill but faces the daunting task of hiring thousands of new agents to an unpopular agency with plummeting morale.

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Read more: https://prospect.org/labor/2025-08-06-fema-employees-reassigned-to-ice/

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🚨SCOOP:
A "select" number of FEMA probationary employees have been involuntarily reassigned to ICE, effective immediately, to "assist with hiring and vetting." If the employees don't report to ICE within seven days, they are threatened with termination.
prospect.org/labor/2025-0...

— David Dayen (@ddayen.bsky.social) 2025-08-06T13:50:50.255Z

David Dayen
‪@ddayen.bsky.social‬

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🚨SCOOP:
A "select" number of FEMA probationary employees have been involuntarily reassigned to ICE, effective immediately, to "assist with hiring and vetting." If the employees don't report to ICE within seven days, they are threatened with termination.
https://prospect.org/labor/2025-08-06-fema-employees-reassigned-to-ice/

FEMA Employees Reassigned to ICE
Probationary employees who had been on paid leave were told to report to ICE within seven days or lose their jobs. It could signal problems with ICE recruitment.
prospect.org
August 6, 2025 at 9:50 AM