WASHINGTON, May 13 (UPI) -- A rainy Tuesday morning could not deter about 25 fired federal workers from walking the halls in the U.S Capitol for the 10th consecutive week to pressure legislators to reverse cuts to the federal government spurred by the Department of Government Efficiency.
Cameron Hilaker, a former USAID employee, said he believed that the actions DOGE took were illegal, and he wants Congress to hold members of DOGE accountable for taking those actions and to rebuild the gutted federal agencies.
"When members of Congress ask us what they can do to help, I personally say three things: Investigate, imprison, rebuild," said Hilaker, a member of Feds Work for You, a group dedicated to highlighting the importance of federal employees. He orchestrated the Tuesday gatherings.
As Hilaker and fellow employees who lost their jobs met one member of Congress after another, they focused not on the repercussions that President Donald Trump's cuts have on themselves, but rather on the people their agencies served.
Hilaker worked as an USAID emergency manager before he was placed on administrative leave in January. He said that he will stop receiving a salary July 1, around the same time that he and his wife are expecting their first child. Preparing for his child's imminent arrival has made it difficult for him to look for new jobs.
Members of Feds Work for You spent the day visiting Senate offices to try to relay their message directly to officials. The group met with senators and their staffers from both sides of the aisle, including Sen. Suzanne Collins, R-Maine, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Van Hollen, D-Md.
"What is happening right now is a direct attack on the services we provide to the American people," said Van Hollen, referencing DOGE layoffs. "I call this the great betrayal, and I think people around the country are understanding that betrayal."
Mack Schroeder, a former Health and Human Services employee who was placed on administrative leave in February and then terminated Saturday, had been coming to the Capitol since February to get lawmakers to recognize the importance of the work that he and other federal employees do.
In fact, in April he was the subject of viral interaction with Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., who called Schroeder "a clown" and said that he "probably deserved" to be fired.
Schroeder now hopes to turn his attention to full-time advocacy work. He ultimately wants to turn the focus away from himself and concentrate on the most vulnerable people who will be impacted by these cuts at his former agency, such as the elderly who rely on Meals on Wheels and people who need Medicaid-subsidized health care.
"This is not about saying that I deserved to lose my job or not. This is about the people who aren't gonna be getting the care that they deserve," Schroeder said. "People are gonna die because we're not able to do the work that we were hired to do."
Dan McDonald, a former USAID employee for 10 years was the team lead for the West Bank and Gaza desk. Before he was laid off, he focused on providing immediate assistance to Palestinians, while also fostering long-term development in the region, such as providing job training and educational programs.
McDonald said the USAID mission to the West Bank and Gaza stopped operating, which could have severe consequences in the Middle East.
"My concern is really about the impact of the longer-term development work that offers alternatives to radicalization throughout the Middle East, but especially in the West Bank and Gaza," McDonald said.
"There's a lot of opportunity for desperation and radicalization as USAID steps back from that kind of long term building of systems and structures."
Amy Hertzberg, a former Environmental Protection Agency employee, who is still on administrative leave, said the impact of the federal cuts extend beyond the people laid off and the people these agencies used to help. She said that many of the EPA's remaining employees must show up at work, but are not actually permitted to do work.
"I've heard of people who sit there during the day. They've exhausted all the optional trainings they could do. They have no work that they've been given, so they sit in the office for eight hours jiggling their mouse because they get in trouble if they don't jiggle their mouse," Hertzberg said.
Hertzberg formerly worked in EPA's Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, where her job was to help identify and protect the most vulnerable populations in the United States. But now she said there was a growing feeling that the entire agency was in "disarray."
