Last week, the widespread sorting in the State Department has triggered confusion and disruption in the agency, forcing some offices to unpredictable and forcing employees to scramble, several sources told CBS News.
The significant cuts and wholesale abolition of several major offices has increased meaningful risks for US national security, current and former officials.
“It is disappointing that someone who does not know what they are breaking, breaks it,” an American officer who was closed on Friday, told CBS News.
Trump administration 1,353 cut the employees of Domestic State Department On Friday, part of a long-planned effort to reorganize the agency and reduce its US-based employees by about 15%. The administration says that the trimmed – with thousands of voluntary departure – were required to streamlined a department, arguing that it had become bureaucratic and bureaucratic.
State Secretary Marco Rubio told reporters last week, “We took a very deliberate step to focus more efficient and more focus to the state department.”
Several State Department employees who talked to CBS argued that the cuts were executed arbitrarily and poorly, and can damage American foreign relations, weakening the country’s diplomatic core. And sources described last week’s trimming as chaotic, along with some bureau and offices of the department – which include passport fraud workers – the cut despite the first signs of the Congress is facing the cut that they will be left alone.
Many Foreign Services officials have sacrifices stories that may connect more with the army with the American diplomatic duct. These include stories of being deployed abroad when their parents died, separating from their families, while prolonged tourism is considered very dangerous for tourism, or uprooted families from schools and homes every few years to work for the United States.
“I always felt that it was still worth it when it was difficult and difficult,” the officer said about the sacrifices made during the service of more than a decade as a foreign service officer. “This is a calling.”
“If this army was, people would have been in weapons,” the officer told CBS News. “I just want people to know that we are also people who help you keep safe.
Unexpected trim
Lead-off staff attained them Shortage (Or RIF) notice on Friday, and their emails and badges were deactivated at 5 pm, but some managers of those departments were not sent a list of telling that they were told that the boss was left to pieces together, which is still not in their teams, according to two current state department employees and an American official.
Some employees received their trimmed notices and on an official visit, an employee of a department and an American official said that the official visit was cut off from his official email. In some cases, the staff laid had to use social media to get into contact with foreign counterparts to cancel the meetings, and scrambled to book their own returns tickets in the United States.
An American officer and two department employees said that the entire employees of the office office, who assist the families of the employees of the State Department, were fired. Last week, in US Consulate Monterery, Mexico, Confirmed An American diplomat was killed in a car accident. An employee of the State Department said that the department employees who were working to return the remains of the employee had to stop after being closed on Friday.
On Wednesday, when asked about the casual assistance by Democratic Sen, Democratic Sen of New Hampshire in a Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the top official of the department for the management of Michael Rigas said that he was “aware that the function was being converted into another office.”
According to an American official, an Congress associate and a state department employee, the new head of the office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs was closed. Officers came to the office in June, but because the Foreign Department had selected the cut-off date for the deduction on May 29, they were rejected on their previous position. Sorting came On the same day In Israeli-occupied West Bank, and a Palestinian-American was killed as administration Israel presses and Hamas To agree to a ceasefire.
At least six analysts of the department’s bureau of intelligence and research, known as INR, were also closed, three sources familiar with the case. The office, which employs around 250 analysts and is part of a comprehensive 18-agency US intelligence community, provides diplomatic and policy makers with assessment to guide the US foreign policy. Ellen Macarthi, who led INR from 2019 to 2021, said in one Post The cuts on LinkedIn were “short -sighted”.
“It’s not just about jobs, it is about weakening a significant ability at absolutely wrong time,” she wrote. “We need strong, stable intelligence to inform the decisions of foreign policy.”
Some offices collided with cuts in surprise
Some were expected to be trimmed. Trump administration Earlier this year, with the intention of eliminating or merging hundreds of offices of the state department, earlier this year, was slated for deepest cuts to focus on human issues, migration and foreign aid. A Congress report took special objectives at human rights-centric offices, which was said that it was surrounded by “radicalism”.
According to four sources, including the department employees and the Congress’ ally, when the retrenchment notices were revealed on Friday, they included several surprises and did not fully match the cuts listed in the state department’s notification.
Sources said there are some cut-in-for-for-hit offices that were not slapped to close, and the other employees who expected to receive the pink slip were spared, the sources said.
The administration told the Congress that the reorganization would not affect the personnel within the passport or visa operation of consular cases. ” But on Friday, employees working on the investigation of passport fraud, according to an American officer, an employee of a department and a Congress associate, faced deep cuts. The step came as a surprise as the Department of Consular Affairs section of the department is funded through passport and visa fees, and does not depend on the taxpayer’s money.
Rigas on Wednesday told MPs that the passport staff “were not tacked”, but the Foreign Department “consolidated other tasks, in which a management is like a remit and can be added to other offices.”
The deduction hit almost all civil service officers in the office of the Population Bureau, refugees and the office of the migration, which handles the refugee rehabilitation efforts, CBS News Was reported earlier. The Congress’s plan called for the office to be “prepared”, and Friday’s trimmed was a surprise, two state department employees said.
Meanwhile, Foreign Services Officers were not closed in Europe and near East Office of Population Bureau, refugees and migrations, even though the notice of administration to the Congress called the administration to eradicate the office, according to an employee of the State Department.
A press briefing asked if Rubio plans to directly address the workforce about the cuts, Tammy Bruce, spokesperson of the State Department, said on Wednesday, “The secretary is … very vocal and likes people and joins as many times he can.
On Tuesday, a video of which was obtained by CBS News in an internal town hall, an employee of a state department asked if any more RIF was expected for the overall workforce of the state, for which Under Secretary Jose Cunningham for management replied, “I know that there is no RIF that is being planned, domesticly, or for foreign countries,”.
In response to another employee of the town hall, who told the website careers.state.gov Still encouraging people to apply, Lav Olovski, head of the global talent management bureau of the department, plugged the new branding of the department.
He said, “I encourage everyone to go to the recruitment page. It is reinstated to focus on one of the new subjects of the secretary’s vision for deliberate recruitment in foreign service, which is patriotism,” he said. “Many of us know patriotism because this is what inspires us to join the workforce. But you may be surprised to know that the state department was not in a intentional subject in to encourage patriots to encourage to join this mission.”
The TV screen seen in the State Department on Wednesday advertised a new “America First Branding Policy”, with instructions on the website with instructions to use guidelines on the website “visually lined department’s activities” on the website. Brand.america.gov,
The trimming is part of a broad gambit by the trump administration to trim the size of the federal government through a combination of trimming and voluntary procurement.
Sorting has drawn the cases. But last week, Supreme Court Let the administration move forward With their lack-in-form plans, while playing with legal battles, the state department began to shut down the domestic workers.
At Wednesday’s Senate hearing, Rigas said the target of the Trump administration is “capable of pursuing the main interests of American people and making American taxpayers accountable”.
“We want to empower our ambassadors and diplomats in the region and in Washington in Washington to carry forward the President’s first foreign policy agenda of America and give results to American people,” Rigas said.
