The Interior Department says it has begun the process of restoring hundreds of probationary employees it fired in an abrupt effort last month by the Trump administration to cut the size of the nation’s government.
A pair of interim court decisions ordered federal agencies to reverse course on the terminations as federal judges consider whether the Trump administration’s move to fire tens of thousands of workers who were still in their probationary period — usually the first year or two from their hiring date — was lawful.
The Interior Department dismissed 1,712 employees in February, according to a court declaration filed this week by Mark Green, Interior’s deputy assistant secretary for human capital. The terminations were part of a larger purge across federal agencies spearheaded by tech billionaire Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
The terminations also slashed more than 500 Department of Energy recent hires and more than 5,000 probationary employees at the Department of Agriculture, which oversees the U.S. Forest Service.
