FEMA has reinstated the 14 employees who were suspended last August after they publicly challenged the Trump administration’s approach to disaster readiness, reversing an eight-month disciplinary action that the workers’ advocates described as retaliation for whistleblowing. The employees received an email Wednesday closing the investigation and telling them to return to work Thursday, according to two FEMA staff members.
The reinstated workers were among more than 190 current and former FEMA employees who signed the letter, known as the “Katrina Declaration,” but they were the only active employees who included their names. The letter warned that multiple Trump administration policies — including a requirement that the Homeland Security secretary approve any FEMA expenditure over $100,000, the reassignment of some FEMA staff to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and cuts to grants and training — risked a catastrophe on the scale of Hurricane Katrina.
One day after the letter’s release on Aug. 25, the 14 staffers were put on indefinite paid administrative leave. They were briefly reinstated in early December only to again be placed on leave the next day. A DHS spokesperson at the time said the reinstatement was the work of “bureaucrats acting outside of their authority.”
Abby McIlraith, a 24-year-old FEMA emergency management specialist and one of the reinstated workers, said she felt “vindicated” and like they did the right thing. She called the eight months of paid leave “a waste of taxpayer dollars.” Speaking from a FEMA office in Maryland Thursday, McIlraith said she was waiting to regain access to her work devices and felt slightly tentative that the reinstatement would be permanent.
The reinstatement is the latest signal that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin is moving away from his predecessor Kristi Noem’s harder stance toward FEMA. Soon after taking the post, Mullin reversed the $100,000 approval policy and has since released more than $1 billion in backlogged FEMA grants and reimbursements to states, tribes, and territories.
A FEMA spokesperson told the Associated Press that the agency does not comment on specific personnel actions but is taking “targeted steps to stabilize our workforce and strengthen readiness.” The spokesperson said, “Under new leadership, FEMA is addressing outstanding personnel actions to ensure workforce stability and a strong, deployable surge force for upcoming national events and potential disasters.”
FEMA this week also told some employees that it will extend contracts for certain term-limited disaster workers after earlier halting or shortening those renewals, according to internal documents seen by the AP. An email to some staff said that Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery Employees — or CORE, a roughly 10,000-person workforce that makes up about half of FEMA’s staff — whose contracts ended between January and May and were previously extended for 90 days may now be reappointed for up to one year. The email also said that eligible FEMA reservists, whose two-year contracts expire May 2, will be renewed for two years. It remains unclear whether CORE workers who were already dismissed will be brought back, though one FEMA employee told the AP they knew of at least one who has been called back. An ongoing lawsuit challenges the dismissals of hundreds of CORE staff between late 2025 and late January, when FEMA paused the nonrenewals.
The reinstatement and contract extensions come as FEMA prepares for the June start of the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season and the FIFA World Cup, and as the agency recovers from the record-long DHS shutdown that ended Thursday. President Trump signed a bill that day funding all aspects of DHS except immigration enforcement and replenishing FEMA’s disaster fund with more than $26 billion. Trump has repeatedly criticized FEMA and has threatened to abolish it entirely. Next week, the Trump-appointed FEMA Review Council will present its months-overdue recommendation report, which is expected to propose sweeping changes to the agency.