Current and former Federal Emergency Management Agency employees rallied on Friday to continue pushing back on staffing cuts and other “dangerous” changes at FEMA under the Trump administration.
A few dozen people gathered outside FEMA headquarters in Washington on Friday for a “FEMA Solidarity Rally.” Attendees called on FEMA to reinstate staff who signed a public dissent letter and urging Congress to pass a bipartisan emergency management reform bill. The protest occurred as about 85% of FEMA staff work without pay through the shutdown.
“The changes implemented over the past nine months are dangerous, and I urge everyone stand with us, speak out, push back and help protect the soul of this agency,” Phoenix Gibson, a public assistance mitigation specialist at FEMA, said during the hourlong rally.
Nearly 2,500 staff have departed FEMA since the start of the Trump administration. Many of those employees took a deferred resignation or retired early as President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said they were moving to eliminate FEMA and push more disaster responsibilities to the states.
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While calls to eliminate the agency have cooled off, rallygoers said there is still a lack of transparency at FEMA under the Trump administration.
“FEMA employees should be respected,” Michael Coen, Jr., FEMA’s former chief of staff under the Obama and Biden administrations, said at the protest. “Your leadership should stand up for you and be transparent with you.”
The rally comes after current and former FEMA staff signed the “FEMA Declaration” in August. The public letter warns the staffing cuts and other changes at FEMA have left the agency unprepared to deal with a major disaster.
Gibson is one of 36 current FEMA staff who publicly signed their name to the declaration. FEMA placed Gibson and the other public signers on paid administrative leave shortly after the letter went public. Lawyers representing those FEMA employees allege the agency is illegally retaliating against them.
Gibson said she didn’t know the status of any investigation into the signers or when she might be taken off administrative leave.
Speakers at the rally called on David Richardson, the senior official performing the duties of the FEMA administrator, to resign. They highlighted reports that Richardson was unreachable after July’s catastrophic flooding in Texas, as well as his pledge to “run over” FEMA staff who got in his way.
“Try as they might to run us over, we are not backing down, and we are putting up one hell of a fight,” Gibson said.
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FEMA did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the rally.
DHS has argued the critics of its actions at FEMA are “objecting to reform.” The Trump administration has established a “FEMA Review Council” that is due to issue recommendations in November.
Current and former staff say they do not oppose reform.
“Let me be abundantly clear: those of us that signed the Katrina Declaration, both publicly and anonymously, along with thousands of FEMA employees across the country, do not oppose change. In fact, we welcome it,” Gibson said. “The agency has always believed in and worked towards meaningful change, change that is backed in evidence and research and designed to serve the public.”
Jeremy Edwards, former press secretary at FEMA under the Biden administration, said FEMA staff supported reforms to emergency management during Trump’s first term.
“No doubt, as my colleagues have pointed out, there are certainly areas where we can and should improve the delivery of disaster assistance,” Edwards said at the rally.
“That said, diminishing the work of FEMA or dismantling the agency altogether is a nonstarter,” Edwards added. “We cannot afford it. From Hurricane Ian to the wildfires in Maui to the more recent floods in Texas, it’s clear these disasters are becoming more frequent and more and more intense. Our country needs FEMA now more than ever, and right now, FEMA needs us, too.”
Current and former officials also criticized Noem’s policy requiring her to approve all DHS spending actions over $100,000, arguing it slows down disaster aid. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have pushed back on Noem’s policy for slowing down aid.
“How much did that delay getting assistance to communities that needed it?” Edwards said.
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The rally also highlighted the Fixing Emergency Management for Americans Act, a bipartisan bill recently passed by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in September. The FEMA Act would make major reforms to federal disaster response and make FEMA an independent agency, lifting it out from under DHS.
“I have heard that the Congressional Budget Office is working on the scoring of that bill, so I believe it’s making progress through the legislative process,” Coen told reporters after the rally.
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