Five House Democrats are leading the latest congressional effort to demand answers from the Department of Homeland Security about the reassignment of Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) employees to immigration enforcement roles during the government shutdown, calling the efforts “a political maneuver.”
Led by Rep. James Walkinshaw, D-Va., the letter sent Monday to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was also signed by Reps. Shontel Brown, D-Ohio, Suhas Subramanyam, D-Va., Eugene Simon Vindman, D-Va., and Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., and urged the secretary to reassign CISA staff to their former roles.
“These actions endanger the American public in service of the Trump Administration’s radical, nationwide Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) agenda. We urge you to immediately rehire and reclassify DHS personnel who have been separated or reassigned from CISA,” the lawmakers wrote.
Reported reassignments specifically violate the Antideficiency Act, lawmakers said, which prohibits federal agencies from spending money or committing to obligations without congressional approval – or in this case, prevents agencies from reassigning or directing unpaid staff to new duties unless they are explicitly tied to excepted activities.
Reductions in force – or layoffs – also carried out at CISA are illegal under the Antideficiency Act, lawmakers added, saying that the moves “raise serious concerns about the Administration’s motives.”
Those layoffs, which have occurred at multiple federal agencies, have been deemed likely “a way to punish the opposing political party,” according to a federal judge who recently ruled to temporarily block thousands of federal layoffs.
The layoffs at CISA appear to be “a political maneuver designed to pressure Congress rather than protect the country,” the lawmakers wrote, and will result in “a government with a hollowed out federal workforce, diminished cybersecurity readiness, and that is ill equipped to defend the American people from immediate threats.”
“At exactly the time when the federal government is shut down, employees are being furloughed or forced to work without pay, and hostile nation-state actors are actively probing U.S. infrastructure, it is unconscionable that the Administration is stripping resources from the nation’s frontline cyber defenders,” the lawmakers wrote.
In the letter, the lawmakers asked Noem to respond quickly to questions about what impact assessments were done before layoffs and reassignments at CISA, how CISA’s mission conflicts with the president’s goal of protecting the homeland, and what steps will be taken to maintain cyber defense amid staff cuts.
Last week, Rep. Eric Swalwell sent a similar letter to acting CISA Director Madhu Gottumukkala, which requested that all employees be reinstated to their roles and noted that Congress has not been given current numbers on CISA staffing levels since May.