Federal workers around nation’s capital worry over Trump’s plans to send some of them elsewhere

WASHINGTON (AP) — Worries of being uprooted from their jobs have returned for Laura Dodson and other federal workers, who have long been the economic backbone of the nation’s capital and its suburbs.

During former President Donald Trump ‘s administration, her office under the U.S. Department of Agriculture was told it would be moving. About 75 people were going to be relocated to Kansas City, Missouri, Dodson said, but less than 40 actually moved. A rushed process that failed to consider the need to find homes, jobs for spouses and schools for children prompted some retirements, she said, and some took other federal jobs, hurting the agency in the end.

Now, with Trump proposing the relocation of up to 100,000 federal jobs from Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia under his Agenda 47 plan, concerns about being abruptly moved are again troubling federal workers. The Republican’s proposals stir anxiety in the midst of an unusually competitive U.S. Senate race in heavily Democratic Maryland that could determine control of the Senate, with even the Republican candidate calling the plans “crazy.” The proposals also could hinder Trump’s chances to win Virginia, a state he lost in 2016 and 2020, where a U.S. Senate seat widely seen as safely Democratic is also on the ballot.

“It’s causing a lot of anxiety, a lot of discomfort within the workforce, as you are faced with these strong, negative, anti-federal worker stances and this uncertainty of what might happen to your job, your home and your livelihood,” said Dodson, who is acting vice president of American Federation of Government Employees local 3403, which represents the USDA’s Economic Research Service.