WASHINGTON — The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is one of the agencies facing permanent staff reductions as a consequence of the ongoing partial government shutdown, according to reports from The Post.
The reductions in force (RIFs), which commenced last Friday, will terminate positions for a portion of CISA’s 2,540 employees as well as thousands of others throughout the federal government. This follows President Trump’s threats to target agencies favored by Democrats if party senators did not agree to fund the government.
A signal of the magnitude of the job cuts is evident as CISA intended to maintain only 889 employees during the shutdown, while furloughing approximately 65% of its workforce.
CISA, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, was previously headed by Chris Krebs during Trump’s first term and publicly rebutted Trump’s claims of voter fraud from the 2020 election, contradicting the president’s stance on mail-in ballots and asserting that the election was “the most secure in American history.”
An insider revealed to The Post that CISA had disseminated “disinformation.”
As many as 750,000 federal employees are being furloughed daily, and some of these individuals might be included in the permanent layoffs mandated by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Overall, the federal workforce consists of around 2 million employees, excluding military personnel and Postal Service workers.
A second insider confirmed that various departments faced “substantial” job cuts on the tenth day of the shutdown.
Senate Democrats have attempted to utilize the standstill to negotiate an extension of Obamacare health insurance subsidies, which are set to expire at the end of the year, affecting nearly 22 million individuals. While some Republicans are open to extending the subsidies, GOP leadership insists on passing a temporary funding bill first before addressing healthcare issues.
Republicans have raised objections to a Democratic plan that would restore approximately $200 billion over a decade in subsidies for asylum seekers and hospital reimbursements for undocumented immigrants.
White House budget chief Russ Vought declared on Friday that the process for permanent job reductions at federal agencies has commenced after Senate Democrats blocked the government’s reopening, with only three Democratic senators siding with the Republicans.
“The RIFs have commenced,” Vought tweeted.
