FEMA stops workers who criticize Trump’s cut, say US media reports

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been reported to have terminated a number of employees criticizing the agency’s leadership under US President Donald Trump.

It is alleged that the employees were among those who had recently signed an open letter that cast Trump employees for cuts and alleged intervention, warning that another “national disaster” similar to the hurricane Katrina was possible.

More than 20 employees were told on Tuesday that they had been put on administrative leave, according to sources that spoke with the US partner of the BBC, CBS News.

Asked by the BBC for comment, a FEMA spokesman said the agency’s obligation was the survivors of disasters, “not to protect the broken systems.”

The spokesman also said: “It is not surprising that some of the same bureaucrats who have chaired decades of ineffectiveness are now objecting to the reform.

“Change is always difficult. This is especially for those invested in the status quo who have forgotten that their duty is to the American people who is not rooted bureaucracy.”

There is a renewed control of the readiness for disasters in the United States after a recent deadly flood in Texas and, as a result of Trump’s actions during his second Presidency.

Trump set out on a drastically revised disaster management agency shortly after returning to office in January when he dumped the idea “maybe get rid of FEMA”.

It characterizes the organization as ineffective and suggested that state-level employees are better placed to respond to natural disasters.

The reports show that hundreds of employees – representing about one -third of FEMA’s workforce – have left their job since the beginning of the year for various reasons.

Of the 191 FEMA officials who signed an open letter on Monday, criticizing the agency’s management under Trump, the majority remains anonymous.

The letter affects the 20th anniversary of the hurricane Katrina, stating that the storm took more than 1800 lives and emphasized the need for a competent US disaster management management.

The Trump administration was needed for tasks to reduce the agency’s financing and workforce, the inability to appoint a permanent head of the agency and other issues, including the perceived “censorship of climate science”.

Turning to the Federal Council for Review of the Emergency Management Agency, the letter requests, including protection against “intervention” by the Ministry of Interior Security (DHS) and the termination of “politically motivated dismissals”.

The goal was to “prevent not only another national disaster such as the hurricane Katrina, but also the effective dissolution of the FEMA itself,” the document said.

In response to the letter, a FEMA employee defended the Trump Agency’s work and reforms – stating that she was committed to delivering to the American people and had previously “sunk in bureaucracy” and other ineffectiveness. DHS is yet to answer.

Some of those who have given their names to the protest letter received emails on Tuesday, stating that they were released on administrative leave “In force immediately and continue until further notification”, according to copies of CBS emails.

The group will start “non -working status” and will continue to receive pay and benefits, the emails said. The emails did not cause the relocation, but they assured that it was not “disciplinary action and was not intended to be criminal.”

The New York Times reported that a larger number of about 30 employees received an email.

The Washington Post reported that at least two of FEMA employees were involved in the federal response to the deadly flood in July in Texas.

Dozens of people were killed in the disaster – including 27 participants in the girls’ summer camp. Asked by legislators on the accusations that some rescue work was delayed, the FEMA current administrator describes the answer as a “model”.

Other natural disasters that US disaster staff claimed this year were violent fires in Los Angeles.

The order over FEMA’s suspensions comes with the hurricane season in the Northern Atlantica in progress and with the expectation that the agency will be more busy than usual due to higher sea temperatures -make more likely to change the climate.