The Trump administration plans to push thousands of U.S. Agriculture Department workers out of the Washington, D.C., region by forcing them to relocate to far-away offices if they want to keep their jobs.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced the plan in a press release Thursday, with her office claiming the move would “better align” the agency “with its founding mission of supporting American farming, ranching, and forestry.”
Rollins said the department employs around 4,600 workers in the D.C. area, but by the time the transition is over, it plans to have “no more than 2,000” left in and around the nation’s capital. It also expects to close most of its buildings in the area, including a major research center.
The D.C.-area employees would be transferred to “hub” locations in Raleigh, North Carolina; Kansas City, Missouri; Indianapolis, Indiana; Fort Collins, Colorado and Salt Lake City, Utah, the agency said.
Rollins acknowledged the move would create “personal disruption for you and your families,” in a video directed at agency employees.
“This decision was not entered into lightly,” she said.
Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, a union representing USDA workers, told HuffPost in a statement that the move would damage the agency. He noted that, despite common misperceptions, 85% of federal employees already live outside the Washington, D.C., region.
“But D.C. is the center of our nation’s government for a reason, as it facilitates needed coordination between senior leadership and field offices and ensures agencies are at the seat of the table when decisions are made at the White House and in Congress,” Kelley said.
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He singled out the announced closure of the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Maryland as particularly misguided, calling it a “crown jewel” for critical research.
“I’m concerned this reorganization is just the latest attempt to eliminate USDA workers and minimize their critical work,” Kelley added.
The relocation proposal is reminiscent of a similar, controversial plan at the USDA from the first Trump presidency.
In 2019, then-Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced that two agencies within the USDA would be relocated to Kansas City to save money and place employees in the Heartland. The move crushed morale and prompted many workers to leave rather than upend their families’ lives; it also fueled a successful union organizing campaign among USDA staff.
Mick Mulvaney, who had served as Trump’s budget director, later boasted about how many resignations the plan had spurred.
HuffPost reported earlier this year on how that move was still dogging the agency and its mission more than five years later. A USDA economist said the relocation plan appeared to be little more than a mass layoff in disguise.
“We had a lot of people who had spent their careers working on very specific fields — very niche questions,” the economist said. “And when they left, it was so sudden and abrupt that there wasn’t time to bring in the next generation. You had to just leave all of your work and go.”
Rollins argued that pushing workers to other states would benefit the agency’s work.
“President Trump was elected to make real change in Washington, and we are doing just that by moving our key services outside the beltway and into great American cities across the country,” she said.
The proposal aligns with Trump’s broader attacks on the federal workforce.
Since taking power in January, the administration has gone to great lengths to push federal employees out of the government, either by firing them through legally dubious means, enticing them to leave through early retirement offers or making them so miserable that they decide to quit.
More than 15,000 USDA employees took the administration’s “deferred resignation” proposal earlier this year, raising concerns about how it would continue to enforce food safety, administer agricultural programs and conduct critical research. In fact, so many chose to leave that USDA leadership had to encourage some to change their minds.