A week ago, on orders from the Trump administration, federal officials began firing thousands of employees at agencies including the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Energy, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Forest Service, which is part of USDA. Most of the employees were probationary, meaning that they鈥檇 recently been hired or changed positions, a status that extended to more than 200,000 workers and carries few protections. In termination notices, the workers were informed that their employment was not in the public interest, based on their performance. The statement came as a shock, especially since many of them had received only positive reviews during their careers.
This isn鈥檛 the first time a presidential administration has pushed for wide-scale firings. In the 1990s, the Clinton administration cut at least 377,000 positions in the federal bureaucracy. But those terminations occurred over the course of several years, with bipartisan congressional support and a review period, whereas Trump, with Elon Musk and DOGE beside him, slashed the agencies without any congressional involvement, almost immediately.
Trump officials have celebrated their breakneck pace. On Feb. 20, at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, held just outside Washington, D.C., Musk appeared onstage brandishing a chainsaw. 鈥淭his is the chainsaw for bureaucracy,鈥� he , waving it over his head. 鈥淐hainsaw!鈥�
Two days earlier, on Feb. 18, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller became so agitated during a CNN interview that host Brianna Keilar asked him to calm down. Miller wasn鈥檛 having it. 鈥淚 will be as excited as I want to be about the fact that we are saving Americans billions of dollars,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hat we are ending the theft and waste and grift and corruption, that we are stopping American taxpayer dollars from subsidizing a rogue federal bureaucracy that has been relentlessly weaponized against the American people.鈥�
Many of the fired workers are young, just starting careers and families, and they鈥檝e been thrown into economic uncertainty. The massive reduction affects not only the workers, though. As many advocates for the federal workforce and their projects have pointed out, veterans could have more trouble receiving care, endangered species could go unmonitored, farmers could struggle to access aid and cultural sites could be less protected.
鈥淚t鈥檚 people showing up to respond to phone calls and emails,鈥� said Eytan Krasilovsky, southwest director of the Forest Stewards Guild, a nonprofit that aims to promote responsible forestry. 鈥淚t鈥檚 people making sure that fees are collected and campgrounds are safe. It鈥檚 people making sure that our mitigation projects to protect water sources around communities are happening. The impacts of what鈥檚 happening right now are going to be felt for years, if not decades, and it鈥檚 going to be really hard to rebuild morale, faith and trust after this.鈥�
To get a sense of what it was like to experience this purge, Searchlight spoke to three New Mexicans who were fired. All were probationary; none received severance pay. Two of the three asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution. 鈥淚t鈥檚 our right to talk to reporters in these situations,鈥� a fourth fired worker said. 鈥淏ut there鈥檚 a feeling of punitive actions taking place.鈥�
The first, Dillon Alexander, is 30 years old and worked as a forestry technician for the Forest Service in the Carson National Forest; the second worked for the Department of Agriculture and is in their 20s; and the third worked for the Forest Service and is in his 20s. Their accounts follow, edited for clarity and length.
鈥業 am going to work outside forever鈥�
I spent the latter part of my youth living on my uncle鈥檚 sheep ranch, in an area called Candy Kitchen, an hour and a half from Gallup and Grants. I flew in from southern California, landed in Albuquerque, and drove out to the ranch. It was a really rainy summer. There were sunflowers everywhere. That evening, I watched the sun set over the mesas, and I crawled up into a juniper tree, and a bunch of sheep came and laid down around the tree, and I was like, 鈥淭his is it. I really don鈥檛 know how this is going to work out, but I am going to work outside forever.鈥�
I worked for the Forest Service. Honestly, as soon as Donald Trump was elected, I thought, 鈥淭his job is over.鈥� The afternoon of February 13, I got a text from my supervisor, saying, 鈥淲e need to talk.鈥� We got onto a Teams meeting, and she and my district ranger told me, 鈥淲e鈥檙e really sorry, but we just got out of a meeting, and they鈥檙e deciding to let pretty much everybody go that was hired in the last two years.鈥� Almost my whole office was fired.
I conducted wildlife surveys as part of a crew. We were usually looking for particular birds, such as the northern goshawk. And I looked for the silver spot butterflies鈥� larval host, which is the northern bog violet. I was one of the only people who was in the forest working with that plant directly. The silver spot butterfly was just listed this year as threatened, and we were still figuring out how that would change riparian habitat monitoring and engagement. The purpose of the surveys is essentially to determine whether the animal is present or not, the overall habitat quality and whether you can follow through with extractive processes like timber. If any of those species are on a site, then it鈥檚 a major holdup to a lot of different operations.
The bird species in particular depend directly on forest cover. The goshawk, for example, is very dependent on Ponderosa pine, which is a big timber species. If nobody pays attention to the goshawk 鈥� it鈥檚 not endangered, but it鈥檚 certainly an indicator species of overall forest health 鈥� that could have a significant impact on it, because it depends on larger kinds of idealized forests, something that is obviously in conflict with a lot of timber operations. The bog violet is probably in one of the most sensitive ecosystems in the southwest. It tends to exist in these mid- to higher-elevation riparian and lacustrine ecosystems, these permanently wet ecosystems. If we don鈥檛 have a workforce to even determine if they exist there, how will we do anything for them?
When Donald Trump says, 鈥淒rill, baby, drill,鈥� I anticipate that timber operations will be a part of it. The majority of income from most forests is some type of timber operation. If they鈥檙e trying to streamline these operations to be able to get past the government red tape, as people like to call it, this is the fast track to do it: remove the people who are looking into the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), and who are doing the surveys to see what鈥檚 out there. I鈥檓 afraid it might lead to NEPA being dismantled. Every time I show up on a site that鈥檚 been clear-cut, I know it鈥檚 never coming back the same. We鈥檙e never going to see that return to some state of equilibrium that is healthy. It鈥檚 heartbreaking.
I remember doing a goshawk survey once. We were looking around for maybe two hours at one site, making calls with little hawk whistles. Finally, I found a huge, ancient Ponderosa, the single Ponderosa left from a timber operation years earlier. It took three of us to wrap around this tree. The very top had gone flat 鈥� the wind had snapped it off. Still, it was taller than everything around it, super thick.
Right beneath the highest branches of the tree was the nest, the first goshawk nest I ever found. It was later in the season, so the fledglings had already left, but there was evidence that they had fledged that year. It was a feeling of like, you know, 鈥淭his is real. This is what we鈥檙e here to do.鈥� There wasn鈥檛 even a bird in sight, but we knew that they were hanging out because the nest was there, that the practices we were implementing are working because this animal is here, and because that animal is there, we know that this ecosystem is where it鈥檚 supposed to be.
I think a lot of people don鈥檛 know what these public lands give us. You look at Reddit posts, and there are people who are stoked about these firings. A lot of people imagine, 鈥淭he forest is way far away from me,鈥� or, 鈥淭hat鈥檚 for other people,鈥� that we have forests strictly for aesthetic and for timber. But in reality, all of us depend on it for so much, be it water quality, air quality, open space, wildlife habitat. So many ecosystem services are provided by these spaces. There鈥檚 a real disconnect between what those services are and what is in the public mind.
鈥業 was told ... I was exceeding expectations鈥�
I was employed with one of the primary branches under the USDA. My job title and focus was associated with providing technical support and facilitating funding for stakeholders who were looking to conserve resources on their property. This included people like general landowners, farmers and livestock owners. Salt of the earth people.
The cool thing about the position, something that I loved, was that it focused on a little bit of everything: we would help with crop irrigation activities, pollinators, water for livestock, wildfire mitigation, rangelands and forested areas. The stakeholders would do the work, we鈥檇 refer them to specifications and standards, and then, after they did the work, we would help them get compensated for it. Unfortunately, a lot of the funding is frozen right now. We have people who have done the work who aren鈥檛 getting paid. A lot of farmers operate on very slim margins. Receiving that compensation is make or break for these people.
I was fired on Valentine鈥檚 Day, which was kind of funny. I was in my office, answering phone calls like I normally do, and I got a call from somebody who was concerned about receiving their funding. We had a program involving the Inflation Reduction Act, and we were notified that all funding had been halted, so we weren鈥檛 able to issue funds to landowners. They were calling me to find out if they could expect funding anytime soon, because they were worried about losing their property.
I made the very unfortunate decision to check my email right in the middle of that, and I got a letter saying my job had ended on the 13th. It was an awkward conversation. I said, 鈥淵ou know, I may not be able to help you moving forward, because I鈥檝e apparently been terminated.鈥� And then I referred them to the only other person in my office who could assist them.
I was profoundly hurt. I loved my job. The letter included a statement of perceived deficiency in performance. However, it was not clarified to me by my supervisor, my supervisor鈥檚 supervisor, or my general boss, that there was any kind of deficiency in my conduct. In fact, I was told the opposite: that I was exceeding expectations.
I had to notify my supervisors that I was terminated, because they were not told ahead of time. They were just as shocked as I was, and thankfully showed a lot of support, saying that I did meet their performance expectations and they would do what they could to see whether I could ever be employed there again. My office was already very understaffed, partially because it鈥檚 difficult to fill positions in rural communities. There鈥檚 not a lot of people jumping at those opportunities.
I had a teacher in my K-12 years who led me to science. We watched a PBS documentary on the Dust Bowl, and there were a lot of firsthand accounts from people who had lived through it. It was very influential to me. We鈥檙e not even 100 years out from the Dust Bowl. It spawned a lot of federal programs to directly combat that kind of ecological disaster. And, I have to say, we鈥檝e made some pretty reasonable progress since then, especially as far as erosion prevention goes.
I noticed that a lot when I was out doing rangeland work, seeing how an area can recover with appropriate stewardship and flexible management. I remember going out for the first time and seeing a very obvious, visible difference between rangeland that has been cared for, following prescribed grazing approaches, and rangeland that hasn鈥檛. After talking to a few landowners who were very passionate about introducing rotational grazing, visiting their properties, I hit knee-high grass and saw a lot of biodiversity and stabilization. It looked like what you would picture when you see a plain, long and vast, kind of like a natural wheat field. We heard a lot of bird activity.
Comparatively, on rangeland that hadn鈥檛 been cared for, we鈥檇 see what looked like somebody鈥檚 neighbor鈥檚 lawn that hasn鈥檛 seen water in a couple of years. Cactus everywhere. Encroaching juniper everywhere. Dirt.
I have had the opportunity to meet with a lot of people from a lot of walks of life, some who have been here for generations, and some who have maybe been here for like 30 to 50 years, who have such a passion for where they live. Getting to see these people love the land and love the work that they鈥檙e doing to improve their land for their families is really vindicating. They were so open and willing to learn and do their part. A lot of people underestimate how necessary it is to have this web of people just doing what they can.
I鈥檓 always going to gravitate towards helping people and doing resource management. There鈥檚 a lot of uncertainty now around what it鈥檚 going to look like, not just for myself. I鈥檝e heard this voiced by a lot of other people in the same boat. It鈥檚 just like, what should we expect?
鈥楾he forest is burning鈥�
On Thursday, February 13, I was pretty relaxed, just figuring some things out. And then my boss called and talked about how I got terminated, and how that doesn鈥檛 reflect my performance, and how she really appreciates me as a person, how I am and how I act.
I dropped to the floor. I just started crying. My boss was crying on the phone with me and asked if I had questions or needed clarifications. My mind was really fuzzy, so I couldn鈥檛 respond or ask questions. I just couldn鈥檛 believe it. Honestly, it just seemed like something that wasn鈥檛 real. I thought there would be more job security.
It hurts economically, losing my benefits. I have to work other jobs to survive here, and I鈥檓 working another job right now, but it鈥檚 not paying a whole lot. I was really looking forward to actually making money, so that I could do things that I was interested in, and save. I fortunately have the support of my community, so I鈥檓 able to make it through a little easier.
But it also just hurts to see that public lands are not going to be taken care of. That has shaken me up more than the economic side of it. I鈥檝e been thinking about the safety of visitors to our forests, and if there鈥檚 how there will now be reduced crews. Fire just keeps going in my mind. It鈥檚 just like: 鈥淲ell, the forest is burning.鈥�
I鈥檓 thinking about facilities employees being terminated, and how there鈥檒l be so much more trash, and trails that won鈥檛 be as well-maintained. I think about the educators in the national parks, and how people might not learn proper etiquette, and how to be respectful to wildlife.
When I go on a trail and see the life come out of the forest 鈥� I really like skinks and salamanders 鈥� when I pause and look around and see skinks everywhere, just hear birds screeching, or just the aura around me, I feel really comforted. I just feel really happy to be outside, on public land. I鈥檝e had a lot of pent-up anger from the termination. This really strong ball of anger. At the beginning of the week I was crying, and the anger was at an all-time high. Now I feel a little bit calmer. There鈥檚 so many of us out there that something will happen.
A firefighter walks the line of the El Valle fire, along the High Road to Taos in the Carson National Forest. Nadav Soroker/Searchlight New Mexico This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.