Why It Matters
A sweeping reorganization of the U.S. Department of Agriculture is drawing sharp opposition from federal unions and former agency officials, who argue that mandatory relocations from Washington, D.C. will accelerate workforce losses and degrade services ranging from wildfire response to rural development lending. Maryland and the broader D.C. region stand to lose a significant share of the department’s federal workforce under the plan.
What Happened
Federal union leaders held an online briefing Thursday to press the Trump administration to halt the mandated relocation of more than 2,500 USDA employees from its Washington headquarters to five regional offices: Raleigh, North Carolina; Kansas City, Missouri; Indianapolis, Indiana; Fort Collins, Colorado; and Salt Lake City, Utah.
The relocation effort was launched one year ago by USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins. A July 2025 memo from Rollins set a ceiling of no more than 2,000 USDA employees in the D.C. region — down from approximately 4,600 when the reorganization was first announced.
Kevin Shea, who served as acting USDA secretary under Former President Biden, participated in Thursday’s briefing and argued the agency cannot carry out its statutory responsibilities without a fully staffed, qualified workforce. “All of this requires an adequate and qualified workforce,” Shea said. “These new proposed actions, added to the damage already done, all but ensures that we’ll not have one.”
Chearice Vaughn, president of AFSCME Local 3870, said she and 45 colleagues in the USDA office overseeing rural development grants and loans received relocation notices directing them to move to Dallas, Texas. She described the situation as leaving workers with no real options. “It’s a forced choice: uproot your entire life, or leave federal service,” Vaughn said. Eighty-six percent of those on her team who received relocation notices were people of color, she added.
USDA spokespeople did not respond to a request for comment.
By the Numbers
The scale of the workforce reduction at USDA since President Trump returned to office in January 2025 is significant. According to data from the Office of Personnel Management, the department has lost more than 20,000 employees over that period, with the majority departing through early retirement or buyouts facilitated by the U.S. DOGE Service.
The Forest Service alone saw more than 6,500 employees exit in 2025 through layoffs, buyouts, and early retirements. The National Federation of Federal Employees’ Forest Service Council, led by Genny Kotyk, polled nearly 3,000 bargaining unit employees on relocation — only 7 percent said they were willing to move. Roughly 40 percent of Forest Service employees carry fire qualifications, raising concerns about the agency’s capacity heading into future wildfire seasons.
Several national labor unions have filed a request for an injunction in federal court in San Francisco seeking to block the relocations from taking effect.
Zoom Out
The USDA relocations are part of a broader federal workforce restructuring effort under the Trump administration, which has used early retirement incentives, voluntary separation packages, and reorganization plans to reduce the size of the civilian federal workforce across multiple agencies. Similar disputes over mandatory relocations and workforce reductions have emerged at other cabinet departments, with federal employee unions challenging several of those moves in court.
The outcome of the San Francisco injunction request could set a precedent for how courts weigh agency reorganization authority against civil service protections — a question with implications well beyond the agriculture sector. Maryland, home to a large concentration of federal employees tied to the D.C. headquarters ecosystem, has separately been navigating the fiscal and infrastructure pressures of federal workforce shifts, as detailed in reporting on the state’s request for federal support on major infrastructure projects.
What’s Next
The federal court in San Francisco is expected to consider the unions’ injunction request in the coming weeks. If the court declines to block the relocations, employees who receive notices will face decisions about whether to comply, resign, or pursue other legal avenues. Union leaders say they plan to continue public pressure campaigns alongside the litigation. USDA has not indicated any plans to modify the relocation timeline while legal proceedings are ongoing.