The Trump administration has added roughly 50,000 federal employees since Inauguration Day, according to the government’s top personnel official, a surge driven primarily by hires in national security positions that underscore the White House’s current priorities.
Kupor said most of those additions have gone to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), noting that the agency’s rapid expansion has been one of the clearest indicators of the administration’s enforcement-driven approach.
The hiring surge is unfolding alongside the president’s broader effort to reshape the federal workforce, even as his administration moves to trim positions in other departments. “It’s about reshaping the workforce to focus on the priorities that we think are most important,” Kupor said.
READ: Kristi Noem backs Trump’s H-1B stance, tells US will keep visa programs (
Officials have carried out the buildup even as a hiring freeze and job cuts hit other corners of the federal bureaucracy, including the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Health and Human Services.
Kupor noted that the workforce overhaul is far from over, saying in August that the administration anticipates trimming roughly 300,000 federal positions by the end of the year.
Earlier this year, Trump tapped billionaire Elon Musk to spearhead a sweeping downsizing initiative aimed at the 2.4-million-person civilian workforce. With the president’s support, Musk has argued that federal agencies have grown bloated and sluggish, and need a dramatic overhaul to function efficiently.
In practice, that restructuring has meant cuts across agencies responsible for civil rights enforcement, tax collection, and federal clean-energy initiatives, as the administration redirects resources toward its own priorities.
As the cuts accelerated, roughly 154,000 federal workers opted to take buyouts offered by the administration. Those departures stretched across agencies that handle everything from weather forecasting and food safety to public health programs and space operations, according to former officials and union representatives who spoke with Reuters earlier this year.
Overall, the combination of targeted hiring in security agencies and deep cuts across civilian departments has set the stage for a sweeping remake of the federal workforce. The administration maintains that shifting personnel toward border enforcement and defence will bolster national strength, but the breadth of reductions in everyday public functions has raised concerns among former officials and labor groups about lasting disruptions.
With tens of thousands taking buyouts and far more departures expected by year’s end, the government is undergoing an unusually rapid overhaul, supporters champion as long-needed reform and critics argue could hollow out essential operations. Whether agencies can adapt to these sharp changes, and whether the administration’s promised efficiencies materialize, will determine how well the federal government can meet the country’s needs in the years ahead.
The post 50,000 hired, 300,000 set to go: Immigration agencies grow as government shrinks appeared first on The American Bazaar.
