The administration of United States President Donald Trump has announced that it started laying off federal employees as the government shutdown grinds on, despite questions about Trump’s legal authority to do so.
In a terse statement on Friday, US Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought said that the government was moving forward with “reduction-in-force” plans or RIFs to slash the workforce.
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“RIFs have begun,” Vought wrote in a social media post.
Citing anonymous sources in the administration, the news outlet Politico reported that the agencies affected include the departments of the Interior, Homeland Security, Treasury, Environmental Protection Agency, Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services (HHS), and Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
Spokespersons at several of those departments, including the Treasury and HHS, have since confirmed that layoff notices have gone out to employees. In its notices, HHS referenced the “Democrat-led government shutdown”, mirroring the partisan framing of the administration.
“All HHS employees receiving reduction-in-force notices were designated non-essential by their respective divisions. HHS continues to close wasteful and duplicative entities, including those that are at odds with the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again agenda,” the department’s statement adds.
Friday marked the 10th day of the shutdown, with no end in sight. Earlier in the day, House Speaker Mike Johnson announced he intends to keep his chamber shuttered until the Senate acts on a continuing budget resolution that House Republicans had already passed.
The Senate has voted down the House resolution seven times since the start of the shutdown.
“We will come back here and get back to legislative session as soon as the Senate Democrats turn the lights back on. That’s the fact. That’s where we are,” Johnson told reporters.
Democrats, meanwhile, have argued that Republicans have refused to negotiate on healthcare priorities, including extending subsidies under the Affordable Care Act that are set to expire by year’s end.
Trump, a Republican, has been open about his intention to use the shutdown to inflict cuts on programmes he associates with the Democratic Party.
Already, since the shutdown started on October 1, Vought announced nearly $18bn in cuts to New York City infrastructure projects, $2bn in cuts for Chicago’s transportation system, and $8bn in cuts related to climate change, destined to affect 16 largely Democratic states.
“We’re only cutting Democrat programmes, I hate to tell you, but we are cutting Democrat programmes,” the president said during a Cabinet meeting earlier this week. “We will be cutting some very popular Democrat programmes that aren’t popular with Republicans, frankly.”
Democratic lawmakers, meanwhile, have accused the Trump administration of using the shutdown to continue its purge of government agencies and slash services, even though Trump’s legal authority to do so is contested. During government shutdowns, employees are typically furloughed but not fired from their jobs.
On Friday, a federal court in San Francisco held a hearing to weigh complaints from workers’ unions, including the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE).
Those unions have argued that laying off employees during a shutdown amounts to an “unlawful abuse of power”.
In a statement, AFGE President Everett Kelley argued that no other president has attempted to terminate furloughed government employees during a shutdown.
“It is disgraceful that the Trump administration has used the government shutdown as an excuse to illegally fire thousands of workers who provide critical services to communities across the country,” Kelley said, calling on Congress to break its impasse.
“These workers show up every day to serve the American people, and for the past nine months have been met with nothing but cruelty and viciousness from President Trump. Every single American citizen should be outraged.”
Trump, however, has long sought to slash what he has described as “waste” and “bloat” from the federal government. He has also advanced a vision of expanding presidential authority.
So far, the Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration to proceed with the layoffs while courts weigh the legality of such actions.
