Two months ago, Nicole Smith moved from Michigan to Chicago for a new job at the Environmental Protection Agency where she would look for communities that had lead poison in the air.
That all changed last Friday when the 25-year-old received an email that she said left her “absolutely gutted:” she had been terminated from the agency.
“I was immediately locked out of everything, no idea about my benefits, or how I’m gonna get my last paycheck,” Smith said. “It’s been really tough, just being in a new city and then finally getting my dream job and then having it taken with one button pushed.”
Smith was one of just over a hundred people who braved bitter cold in Federal Plaza on Tuesday to protest the Trump administration’s mass firing of federal workers. Since late January, the administration has focused on shrinking the federal workforce, offering buyouts to employees and ordering agencies to lay off nearly all probationary employees who had not yet gained civil service protections.
So far, thousands of federal employees across different agencies have either taken the buyouts or been fired, including workers from the Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Veterans Affairs. On Tuesday morning, 168 National Science Foundation employees were also fired as part of the administration’s aggressive efforts to reduce the federal workforce.
Tuesday’s rally followed nationwide protests on Presidents Day that organizers said were focused on state capitals and major cities including Washington, D.C.; Orlando, Florida; and Seattle. In Chicago, people marched from Federal Plaza to Trump Tower with signs that read “Nobody elected Elon” and “It’s a Coup! Stop President Musk!” Organizers of Monday’s protests said they were targeting “anti-democratic and illegal actions of the Trump administration and its plutocratic allies.”
‘No kings on Presidents Day’ rings out from protests against Trump and Musk
“This is like a suicide pact. We see the harm that’s being done to our country,” Ald. Maria Hadden, 49th, said at Tuesday’s gathering. “I’m worried about how people are going to eat, how people are going to get clean water, how we’re going to continue to fund our housing, how we’re going to be able to build our infrastructure.”
The federal workforce shrinkage is felt strongly in Illinois, speakers said at Tuesday’s rally, emphasizing concerns about how the government will be able to protect the Great Lakes, clean up toxic waste sites and ensure people have access to clean drinking water and safe air in the Upper Midwest. EPA Region 5 — which includes Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and Minnesota — is headquartered in Chicago.
Nicole Cantello, president of the union that represents workers in EPA Region 5, said that her region has lost as many as 100 employees so far to resignation, firing, retirements and forced administrative leave.
“When we lose EPA workers at this scale, we can no longer effectively protect the public in emergencies, like Flint, Michigan, water crisis, or the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio,” Cantello said. “In fact, we have less people working here at EPA right now in the Great Lakes region than during the Reagan administration.”
Workers from agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, showed up at the rally bundled up in heavy winter coats and signs that ranged from “Protect CFPB” to “Stop the Billionaire Takeover.”
“We’ve been ordered to stop work, and I want to get back to work protecting Americans from predatory consumer financial products,” Joseph Sanders, an enforcement attorney with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said.
Sanders was one of over a thousand affected employees when Trump ordered the agency last week to halt its work. The administration also fired dozens of bureau employees, although a judge has blocked the administration from mass layoffs at the bureau.
The determination to get back to work that Sanders felt is one shared by many people at the rally, with workers chanting “AFGE, DOGE won’t silence me” and “Get up, get down, Chicago is a union town.”
“It’s vital that we remember that we are the patriots here. We’ve got to take America back,” said Cam Davis, commissioner for the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District. As Davis spoke, he pulled out an American flag and handed it to the crowd for the group of protesters to pass around. Cheers from protesters erupted in response.
The Associated Press contributed.
