BREAKING NEWS: Trump Administration Orders U.S. Consulates and Embassies Worldwide to Fire Staff, Terminates DHS Workers and Immigration Court Judges

We bring you this breaking news to inform our readers that the Trump administration has ordered U.S. Embassies and Consulates worldwide to begin the process of firing its staff members and has taken further actions to dramatically change the operations of the foreign service moving forward.

The U.S. foreign service is the diplomatic branch of the Department of State that is responsible for representing U.S. interests abroad. This includes the issuance of U.S. visas at U.S. Consulates and Embassies worldwide.

These changes have been made in response to President Trump’s executive order entitled, “One Voice for America’s Foreign Relations,” signed on February 12^th.

The President’s executive order calls upon the Department of State headed by Marco Rubio to make dramatic changes to the way foreign U.S. Consulates and Embassies operate.

This includes making the following changes:

Consular officers and employees must faithfully implement the President’s foreign policies
Failure to implement the President’s agenda will be grounds for professional discipline, which may result in firing Consular personnel
The Secretary of State will change the foreign service to better align with the President’s foreign policy agenda
These reforms include making changes to the recruitment, performance, evaluation, and retention standards of foreign service employees including U.S. Consular officers
The Secretary of State will make revisions and replacements to the Foreign Affairs Manual (FAM). The Foreign Affairs Manual (FAM) is an authoritative source used by Consular officers when issuing U.S. visas at Consulates and Embassies worldwide
The Secretary of State will direct subordinate agencies to remove, amend, or replace any handbooks, procedures, or guidance which are used by Consular officials when issuing U.S. visas at posts worldwide

We are now seeing the impact of this executive order playing out in real time. Shortly after the executive order was signed, U.S. embassies around the world began laying off workers. Sources close to the President have said that U.S. Embassies and Consulates have been asked to reduce U.S. staff members and locally employed staff by at least 10%.

The Future of Consular Visa Processing

Unfortunately, these directives will have extremely harsh consequences for U.S. consular visa processing at Embassies and Consulates worldwide.

Staff shortages mean that wait times for both immigrant and nonimmigrant visa interviews will increase significantly.

For instance, applicants with cases at busy U.S. Consulates and Embassies that have a high demand for visa interviews such as Ciudad Juarez, Mumbai, and Manila, may be stuck in the long visa queues for the foreseeable future. This is devastating news considering that family members may be separated for prolonged periods of time.

This is further complicated by the harsh reality that the Department of State has been grappling with a growing backlog of nearly 400,000 immigrant visa cases since the Coronavirus pandemic.

Separately, changes made to the Foreign Affairs Manual, handbooks, and guidance used by Consular officers to issue visas will likely lead to increasing denial rates, more visa scrutiny, and even more applications being placed in 221(g) administrative processing.

Department of Homeland Security Slashes Workforce

The Trump administration has also ordered the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to cut its workforce.

Last week, the media reported that the agency cut 405 employees from its workforce. 200 of these workers were employed at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), 130 were employed at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and 50 were employed at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

Regarding these firings a DHS spokesperson said, “Under President Trump’s leadership, we are making sweeping cuts and reform across the federal government to eliminate egregious waste and incompetence that has been happening for decades at the expense of the American taxpayer.”

Immigration Court Judges Terminated

As if that weren’t bad enough, on Friday the Trump administration fired 20 immigration judges working for the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) without offering any explanation.

The EOIR is part of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and is responsible for administering the immigration court system for individuals who are in removal proceedings.

These judges collectively preside over removal proceedings to determine whether individuals charged with violating U.S. immigration law should be allowed to remain in the country.

The immigration courts are currently experiencing an unprecedented backlog of over 3.7 million cases, making these firings extremely unsettling.

Conclusion

While these actions align with the President’s larger goals of shrinking the size of the federal government as well as facilitating mass deportations, they raise serious questions regarding civil rights and constitutional violations that may soon give rise to a new string of lawsuits against the government.

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