Washington – The State Department began on Friday to fire more than 1,300 employees, since it seeks to reduce the size of its US workforce by approximately 15%, part of the Trump administration planning plan to reorganize the department.
The reductions of involuntary personnel include 1,107 civil service and 246 employees of the foreign service, according to a notice sent to the employees of the State Department on Friday morning that CBS News obtained. The total number of personnel that leaves as part of the reorganization of the State Department is «almost 3,000», according to the department, a figure that includes those who took the voluntary departure offer of «bifurcation on the road» earlier this year.
The department is also closing or merging dozens of offices based in the USA and reorganizing its organizational table shortly after. The layoffs, called force reduction, or RIF, have been expected for months. The authorities sent a reorganization plan To Congress in March, pointing out the cuts.
Critics argue that the cuts could undermine the work of the State Department. The Democrats in the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee issued a statement by saying that «the decision to fire hundreds of members of the civil service and the foreign service of the State Department undermines our national security.»
«While there are specific reforms that our government can pursue to maximize the impact of each tax dollar, that is not what it is,» the senators wrote. «Manta and indiscriminate cuts, the legacy of Elon Musk’s Doge failed effort, weakens our government’s ability to deliver to the US people profitable.»
Foreign service officers who received RIF notices will separate in 120 days, said the notice sent to employees, while civil service officers will separate in 60 days.
The dismissals planned for a long time are carried out days after the Supreme Court The road cleared For the radical plans of the Trump administration to reduce the size of the government’s workforce, stopping an order of the lower court that arrested dismissal plans in dozens of federal agencies.
The department staff were informed of the imminent force reduction plans in a message on Thursday afternoon by the Secretary of State of Michael Rigas, who thanked the starting staff «for their dedication and service to the United States.» Two sources familiar with the matter said Rif’s notices began to leave employees affected by continuous on Friday morning. The department previously said to journalists who plan to carry out the reductions in force during a single day.
Some employees were told that due to the early RIF, they would not be allowed to telework on Friday, and they should inform to work with all the equipment issued by the department, including laptops, telephones, diplomatic passports, travel cards and any other property owned by the State Department. An email with these instructions told the staff that the badges would be collected during the «output processing» and to ensure that any personal article is collected before that time.
Reorganization of the Scanning State Department
After the notices of reduction in force are turned off, the agency will move to a «several weeks transition» for phase in the new organization list, a senior state department official said Thursday.
The official said the changes are intended to «rationalize this swollen bureaucracy», reduce redundant departments, consolidate functions such as human resources and finance, and change more focus on embassies and foreign offices assigned to handle specific regions.
For example, said the official, the State Department has multiple offices that supervise the sanctions.
«Now, nobody says that the people who worked in any of those sanctions offices were not doing a good job or were not valuable members of the State Department family, but at the end of the day, we have to do the right thing for the mission and what is correct for the US people, and that means having a combined sanctions office,» said the official.
The Department of Political Affairs Office, which includes the specific desks of the country that manage the relations of the United States with individual nations and regions, is «not greatly affected by reductions,» according to the official.
Another senior state department official told reporters that the department «identified offices where natural efficiencies could be found.»
«We took a very deliberate step to reorganize the State Department to be more efficient and more focused,» Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday during a trip to Malaysia on Thursday.
The State Department Formally told legislators In May, he intended to eliminate around 3,400 headquarters based in the USA and close or fuse almost half of its national offices. At that time, the department said it planned to gradually eliminate some offices focused on democracy or human rights that, according to him, were «prone to ideological capture» and add new offices focused on «civil liberties» and «principles of free market.»
The Plan also integrates the previous functions of the United States Agency for International Development in the State Department, after the Trump Administration, after the Trump Administration. He moved to close the foreign aid agency. This movement has generated strong criticism, and the Democrats argue that the agency closed illegally without the permission of the Congress and Humanitarian group warning The closure could endanger public health.
Democrats, and department staff, back
The broader cuts to the State Department have rejected democratic legislators, who argue the movements I could undermine American diplomatic efforts.
«The notion that it is a plan dignifies it. It is just a voluntary effort to simply say goodbye to many people,» said Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, to journalists on Friday.
Many employees of the department have also expressed alarm for changes. The American Foreign Service Association, which represents the Officers of the Foreign Service in the United States and abroad, said Friday that dismissals are not «without binding merit or mission» and that could indicate to other countries that «the United States is withdrawing from the world stage.»
«They go to diplomats not by how they have served or the skills they have, but where they are assigned. That is not a reform,» said the association in a statement on Friday.
For foreign service officers, who generally turn between tasks every few years, force reductions are based on whether they worked in an office impacted by reorganization on May 29, journalists told reporters one of the two senior state department officials to journalists on Thursday.
A current state employee told CBS News that there are people who were in these positions six weeks ago, but since then they have moved to new tasks. «So why would you have a job in which they are no longer there?» they said. «It makes absolutely no meaning.»
The second senior state department official told reporters: «We have tried to do this in an anonymous and functional way.»
«Some of these are positions that are being eliminated, not people,» Rubio said Thursday.
The first official of the Superior Department also said: «We are going to work to handle this in a way that preserves, in the maximum possible extension, the dignity of federal employees.»
Eleanor Watson and Margaret Brennan contributed to this report.
(Tagstotranslate) United States Department (T) Marco Rubio (T) Trump Administration
