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(NewsNation) — On Friday, hundreds of fired government employees have been filing into the Department of Education headquarters in Washington, D.C., to collect their personal belongings and say their goodbyes.
Former workers were given 30 minutes to do this. Afterwards, they were walked out of the building’s doors.
Earlier this month, nearly half of the department’s staff was laid off. The department’s workforce now totals 2,183 workers, down from 4,133 when President Donald Trump first took office.
Supporters and other federal workers, some of whom still work for the Education Department, were also at the headquarters to rally against the cuts.
Downsizing the federal government has been a core goal of the Trump administration. But some say there is a human toll to workers losing their jobs.
“It’s unconscionable that federal workers are being treated like this,” Bradley Custer, one former worker, told NewsNation. “We are public servants who trusted our government as both employers and as constituents, and it’s a major betrayal.”
Trump Education Department order
President Donald Trump last Wednesday signed an executive order calling for the dismantling of the Department of Education. This would require an act of Congress, though, and eliminating the department would not get the votes needed to do that.
So instead, through cuts by the Department of Government Efficiency, the Trump administration aims to “starve” the department so it becomes a much smaller version of what it was before.
The Education Department oversees student loans, Title IV and IX enforcement and manages K-12 grant programs as well as school meal programs for low-income students.
Trump has previously said that student loans, special needs and nutrition programs will shift to other departments rather than being eliminated entirely.
A Quinnipiac University Poll shows that 60% of all voters surveyed are against cutting the department. However, this was split along party lines: 67% of Republicans were in favor of getting rid of the department, while 98% of Democrats were opposed to it.
Several state officials, again in mostly red states, say they’d be happy to have the money that the federal government issues be in their hands so that they can make decisions closer to the local level.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, speaking to NewsNation’s Blake Burman, said he’s fully in support of DOGE cuts to the Department of Education.
“What we want is that money unfettered and our ability to place that in the classroom where it belongs,” Landry said.