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DHS ousted roughly 50 FEMA disaster-response CORE staff in New Year's Eve contract non-renewals

On December 31, 2025, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and FEMA notified roughly 50 Cadre of On-Call Response and Recovery (CORE) employees that their positions would not be renewed as their contracts expired in early January 2026, according to internal emails obtained by CNN. Two sources said the decision came from FEMA's newly elevated acting administrator, Karen Evans, while a DHS spokesperson called the cuts "a routine staff adjustment of 50 staff out of 8,000" -- a characterization multiple sources disputed, saying ousting every worker whose contract expired in a specific window was not routine.

Jurisdiction
Federal
Location
Washington, D.C.

Abuses documented

Actors

On New Year's Eve, Dec. 31, 2025, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and FEMA notified roughly 50 Cadre of On-Call Response and Recovery (CORE) employees, by internal email, that their positions "would not be renewed" and their "services will no longer be needed" once their contracts expired in the first days of January 2026. CORE staff make up close to 40% of FEMA's roughly 8,000-person workforce and form the backbone of the agency's on-the-ground disaster response and recovery operations, including staffing its regional offices.

Two sources with knowledge of the terminations said the decision came from FEMA's newly elevated acting administrator, Karen Evans, who took over after the previous acting FEMA head resigned. A DHS spokesperson characterized the cuts as "a routine staff adjustment of 50 staff out of 8,000" and said CORE positions are "term-limited" and "always subject to end-of-term decisions," denying any new policy. Multiple sources disputed that framing, saying the department had separately discussed deeper CORE cuts and that terminating every worker whose contract expired in a specific window was "not routine." A former senior FEMA official said the cuts would leave FEMA's regional offices "almost entirely" without CORE staff, meaning "states are on their own" when disaster strikes; a current FEMA supervisor and a former one, granted anonymity, separately disputed the "routine" characterization to a second outlet.

Updates

2026-02-27 — Federal lawsuit over CORE non-renewals produced dueling court declarations [3]

In litigation the American Federation of Government Employees and local governments brought against DHS and FEMA seeking to block the mass CORE non-renewals, acting FEMA administrator Karen Evans testified the CORE workforce had grown too large, while former acting deputy administrator MaryAnn Tierney testified that Evans' declaration understated the operational harm of the January 2026 non-renewals.

2026-05 — FEMA reversed course, reinstated roughly 200 non-renewed CORE staff [4]

Under new DHS leadership and ahead of the 2026 hurricane season, and amid the ongoing litigation, FEMA reversed the CORE non-renewals and offered to reinstate roughly 200 affected employees, excluding those who had retired or declined to return; a FEMA spokesperson said on the record the agency was acting to "stabilize" its workforce.

Why we recorded this

Congress created FEMA and funds it to carry out disaster response; when the executive quietly guts the CORE workforce that does the ground-level response work, it disables a congressionally-established function without going through Congress. DHS ousted roughly 50 CORE staff on New Year's Eve as the opening move of a broader push to shrink FEMA's disaster-response capacity, calling the cuts routine even as officials internally acknowledged deeper reductions were under discussion. This archive records the action because dismantling agency capacity through unilateral personnel decisions, rather than through the legislative process, erodes the separation of powers and leaves disaster response weaker for the people who depend on it.

Sources

  1. Exclusive: DHS begins slashing FEMA disaster response staff as 2026 begins — CNN primary accessed September 7, 2026
  2. Concerns mount over FEMA staff reductions — Federal News Network investigative accessed September 7, 2026
  3. Officials warn disaster response at risk as former and current FEMA leaders clash in court over mass staff cuts — Government Executive investigative accessed September 7, 2026
  4. FEMA brings back employees it recently let go as it looks to 'stabilize' its workforce — Government Executive primary accessed September 7, 2026

See also