FEMA workers put on leave after signing letter criticizing Trump leadership

Several Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) workers have been placed on leave after signing a scathing letter to Congress. The letter criticizes Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her boss, President Donald Trump, as well as other FEMA leaders.

The letter, titled the “Katrina declaration,” says that since January 2025, FEMA has been “under the leadership of individuals lacking legal qualifications, Senate approval and the demonstrated background required of a FEMA Administrator.”

The declaration accuses the Trump administration of dismantling FEMA’s authority and undoing two decades of progress since Katrina. It warns that the administration’s changes could trigger catastrophic failures.

FEMA staff wrote six statements of opposition in the declaration, with the hope that the letter is timely enough to “prevent not only another national catastrophe like Hurricane Katrina, but the effective dissolution of FEMA itself.”

The six statements of opposition are as follows:

• The reduction in the capability of FEMA to perform its missions
• The ongoing failure to appoint a qualified FEMA administrator, as required by law
• The elimination of life- and cost-saving risk reduction programs
• Interference with preparedness programs that build capacity for our SLTT partners
• The censorship of climate science, environmental protection, and efforts to ensure all communities have access to information, resources, and support
• The reduction of FEMA’s disaster workforce

The letter, signed by 180 current and former FEMA staffers, was released on the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall in southeast Florida. Hurricane Katrina was one of the deadliest disasters in U.S. history, killing 1,400 people in New Orleans. Friday marks the 20th anniversary since the hurricane made landfall in New Orleans.

FEMA staff put on leave

According to CNN, since FEMA staff sent the letter, at least six employees have been put on paid leave and had their government accounts suspended. 

“It is not surprising that some of the same bureaucrats who presided over decades of inefficiency are now objecting to reform. … Our obligation is to survivors, not to protecting broken systems,” a FEMA spokesperson said. “Under the leadership of Secretary Noem, FEMA will return to its mission of assisting Americans at their most vulnerable.”

The news comes a month after The Washington Post reported that the administration put more than 140 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) employees on leave after they sent their own letter of dissent.