Briefing: Equitable Federal Workforce + more
Our Immigration, Food Safety, Medicaid, and Medical Research Funding teams all delivered updates this week. Our Equitable Federal Workforce team provides a look back at what’s changed for federal workers since the beginning of the second Trump administration.
Equitable Federal Workforce
A new lawsuit states that President Trump has fired or attempted to fire 75% of Black leaders at executive-branch agencies during his second term, versus 27% of white officials. Plaintiff Alvin Brown, formerly the only Black member of the National Transportation Safety Board, was removed from his position without cause and replaced by a white man. The suit highlights disproportionate firings of Black officials at other agencies, including the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Federal Reserve, and the National Labor Relations Board, as well as at the Library of Congress and in military leadership.
Last year, the Equitable Federal Workforce team focused on tracking the chaotic and inequitable layoffs, buyouts, and disruptions. Some workers were rehired after months of limbo or repeated reversals, some roles have been filled by new employees more aligned with Trump’s agenda, and many cases are still being contested in court. It has all taken a heavy toll on the workforce that keeps our government running.
This year, we’re seeing how ill-equipped our checks and balances are for these abuses of power. The Trump administration is illegally terminating collective bargaining agreements, reclassifying employees to make them easier to fire, retaliating against people of color in positions of power, and making unprecedented bids for protected personal information, like medical records of federal workers and their families.
In our timeline, we now track many of the lawsuits filed in response to these actions. We’re also keeping an eye on what all of this costs. The nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service published an analysis finding that the government has paid nearly $71 billion in the past 15 months to gut federal agencies, at a “conservative” estimate. This administration has eliminated roughly 12% of federal jobs since 2024, and we know that many of the lost positions dealt with equity, equal opportunity, and civil rights. Even after the cuts, the federal government remains the largest civilian employer in the country, so its heel-turn against fair employment is a blow to labor protections, to workers, and to Black women in particular. We’re left with a government that is less capable of equitably serving the people of the United States, and which is itself a much less equitable employer.
Immigration
The Immigration team added 27 events to our timeline this week, including two deaths in ICE custody. In Minnesota, prosecutors filed felony assault charges against an ICE officer, and local officials are investigating ICE’s warrantless arrest of US citizen ChongLy “Scott” Thao as a possible case of kidnapping, burglary, and false imprisonment. DHS continues to outsource parts of its anti-immigrant project to state and local police and private contractors, thwarting accountability and oversight. In cases where elected officials have been able to inspect detention centers, they’ve found a horrifying lack of food, overcrowding, and filthy conditions. And the administration is still reshaping immigration courts by firing judges who rule against them and hiring vocal proponents of mass deportation.
Food Safety
The Food Safety team added 3 new items to our timeline. Over the objections of workers and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, the USDA proposed new rules to increase slaughter and processing speeds for chicken and pork, raising concerns about both worker and food safety. Conflict continues between the administration and its MAHA base over widespread use of potentially harmful substances known by the technical acronym “PFAS”, sometimes called “forever chemicals.” There are thousands of these compounds in industrial use, commonly found in products ranging from furniture to workout clothing to shampoo. Over the winter, the EPA approved new pesticides containing the controversial chemical isocycloseram, and Trump signed an executive order calling to increase production of the weed killer glyphosate, another PFAS. In March, more than thirty MAHA-aligned groups sent an open letter to EPA administrator Lee Zeldin admonishing him for the agency’s connections to the chemical industry and its deregulation of PFAS. Now, the EPA has delayed the approval of dozens of new uses for PFAS substances.
Medicaid
The Medicaid team added 2 entries to our timeline this week. A RAND report suggests that state Medicaid budgets will shrink by $665 billion by 2034, and 446 hospitals are at heightened risk of closing or reducing services due to Medicaid cuts in the 2025 federal budget reconciliation bill, according to an analysis by Public Citizen.
Medical Research Funding
The Medical Research Funding team added just 1 new entry to our timeline, but it is a major development in the ongoing fight over federal funding: The Trump administration ended its lawsuit to cap indirect costs in NIH grants at 15%. Billions of dollars were at stake, and the end of this suit means that the NIH must honor previously negotiated agreements made with universities and research institutes. Elsewhere, the release of data from 2025 has enabled analysts to document how the NIH is delaying, disrupting, and misdirecting funds — even after congressional appropriations — and the resulting effects on federally funded scientists.
How to help
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