Veterans Department to start mass layoffs as early as June

10/3/2025 6:29

The Department of

Veterans Affairs will begin mass layoffs as early as June,

according to a memo reviewed by Reuters, as President Donald

Trump's campaign to sharply cut the federal government works its

way through a highly politically sensitive agency.



The memo, which is dated March 6, directs the department's

human resources team to begin reviewing the agency's operations

with an eye toward firing civil servants. It said it expects the

review to be done by June, after which "VA will initiate

Department-wide RIF actions," using an acronym for reduction in

force.



The VA responded to a request for comment by sending a link

to VA Secretary Doug Collins' recent opinion piece in The Hill

in which he defended the cuts as "thorough and thoughtful."



Veterans groups, Democrats, and some Republicans have

already voiced concern over the planned reductions at the

department, which is seeking to cut more than 80,000 workers

from the agency.



The cost-cutting campaign by Trump and his adviser Elon

Musk, the world's richest person, in its first phase has already

pushed more than 100,000 people out of the 2.3 million-member

federal civilian workforce. Agencies including the VA -- which

provides services including healthcare to roughly 15.8 million

U.S. veterans -- have begun to plan reductions in force as part

of a planned second wave of cuts.



While there is widespread bipartisan agreement that the

federal government needs to be more efficient, the speed of

Musk's campaigns -- and its repeated need to rehire fired

workers -- has drawn criticism. Some 57% of respondents to a

Reuters/Ipsos poll last week said they oppose the idea of firing

tens of thousands of federal workers.



Federal workers are facing sharp restrictions on spending,

including weeks-long bans on purchasing basic office supplies.



At the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services at least

some workers were ordered to stop using government "purchase

cards" used to buy equipment and pay for other expenses for 30

days, with limits reduced to $1, according an agency email

reviewed by Reuters.



The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees

immigration, didn't immediately return an email.



Even by the standard of Musk-driven cuts elsewhere, the

scale of the layoffs at the VA is particularly deep and will hit

a department that looks after a group that typically garners

wide bipartisan support in the U.S., its military veterans.



Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate

Appropriations Committee, said last week that the job cuts

marked an escalation of a "full-scale, no-holds-barred assault

on veterans" by President Donald Trump that would put veterans'

health benefits in "grave danger."



Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina,

who said he learned of the cuts from the media, called it

"political malpractice" not to consult Congress about the

measures.