A Departmental Look at Trump’s Government Reform Plan

President-elect Trump’s victory promises to lead to a massive government shakeup as the former commander-in-chief re-enters office with far-reaching ideas to reshape the agency’s mission.

Trump has promised to move the agency’s headquarters, end merit-based civil service for some segments of the federal workforce, require civil servants to take constitutional tests and make other changes to executive branch management. But some of his most distinctive policy ideas would also require radical changes in how agencies operate.

Trump has vowed to avoid any attempt to block his program, in part by fighting in court or in Congress to overturn the 1974 Detention Control Act. This law prohibits the executive branch from withholding funds appropriated by Congress for political reasons. The president-elect has not yet said whether he will impose a government-wide hiring freeze upon taking office, as he did in 2017.

If he decides to follow the transition law he has I’ve avoided it so farIn the coming days and weeks, Trump will send teams of employees to agencies to get career staff up to speed on his plans. Here’s a look at some of the agencies that will likely be hit the hardest:

Department of Homeland Security

DHS, perhaps more than any other agency, is at the center of Trump’s vision for government. He promised mass deportations of undocumented immigrants on a scale never before seen in U.S. history. To do this, he will seek to expand DHS immigration agencies, replace the National Guard and change asylum policies to allow for faster removals. Trump has pledged to hire 10,000 additional Border Patrol agents, saying he will ask Congress to approve an overall 10% raise for all agents and implement $10,000 recruiting and retention bonuses for new hires and existing staff. Achieving this goal may be difficultas the Border Patrol has failed to keep up with staffing cuts in recent years, despite offering incentives double and in some cases triple what Trump offered.

Changes in the asylum landscape and the likely end of President Biden’s efforts to use parole, Temporary Protected Status and the new CBP One application to encourage legal migration will prompt policy changes at USCIS and other agencies. Trump has promised to give Immigration and Customs Enforcement much greater powers to arrest immigrants within the country.

Department of Education

Simply put, Trump wants to eliminate this department. Education has been the focus of many policy makers since its creation in 1980. President Reagan vowed to eliminate it, as Republican lawmakers have done in numerous failed bills since then. Trump’s education secretary during his first term, Betsy DeVos, said the agency she led “should not exist” after her tenure.

As president, Trump has repeatedly tried to dismantle 19 mostly small, independent agencies. Congress ignored these proposals. Attempts by administrations of both parties to dismantle the agencies have been unsuccessfully for decades. Trump has backup plans, even if he can’t eliminate the agency entirely.

“On day one, we will begin to find and eliminate the radicals, fanatics and Marxists who have infiltrated the federal Department of Education, including others, and you know who you are,” Trump said. “Because we won’t let anyone hurt our children.”

Department of Veterans Affairs

Under Trump, the VA expanded its use of the private health care sector for veterans through the passage of the MISSION Act. Trump has often touted the measure as expanding private health care at government expense as a key achievement of his first term. Biden continued to implement the law and expand Virginia’s “community care” program while sharply expansion of the internal potential of the IA and coverage.

Project 2025, a policy center created by former Trump administration officials from which Trump has tried to distance himself, has called for greater use of private care. It also says the VA should once again try to identify underutilized facilities that need to be closed, an effort Congress authorized in 2018 but killed 2022 after the Biden administration tried to implement it.

Trump also signed the VA Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act, which is intended to make it easier to fire underperforming or abusive VA employees. The law subsequently suffered a series of setbacks in federal court and oversight boards, forcing the Biden administration to ultimately go back to using it. Trump also promoted the law and said it provided key powers to hold employees accountable, although Prop 2025 said Congress should repeal the law because the whistleblower protection office it created led to staff cuts.

The group also said the Veterans Benefits Administration should automate and outsource claims processing because VBA is too expensive to hire. VBA has processed a record number of claims in recent years.

Internal Revenue Service

President Biden transformed the IRS by signing the Inflation Relief Act. The measure gave the agency $80 billion over 10 years to strengthen enforcement, improve customer service and modernize its technology. Since then, Republicans in Congress have tried to revoke that funding, promising to redirect the money to other purposes. The IRS has added more than 10,000 employees under Biden, and Commissioner Danny Werfel, who is serving a five-year term, has said he plans to increase that total by another 10,000 to more than 100,000 employees.

Werfel has already warned that without an extension of the increased IRS funds, the agency will begin issuing separation benefits, furloughs and, as a last resort, layoff notices to employees by 2026. If the money is withdrawn more quickly, this schedule could be accelerated. Project 2025 called on Congress to stop hiring IRS employees to prevent it from becoming “much more intrusive” and burdening the American people with additional costs.

Werfel boasted that the surge in IRS staff had greatly improved customer service and, by focusing on high wage and corporate tax fraud, attracted significantly higher income to the US Treasury.

Department of Health and Human Services

Trump has pledged to hand over control of public health agencies to Robert Kennedy Jr., who has consistently supported conspiracy theories related to vaccines and nutrition. Wednesday Kennedy said MSNBC it will fire current government employees “in some categories.” However, he acknowledged that he would not seek to eliminate any positions in cases requiring congressional approval.

Trump has promised to create a commission of “independent minds” to investigate the root causes of childhood illnesses. He recently said Kennedy can do “whatever he wants” in public health settings.

State Department

The agency responsible for implementing America’s foreign policy suffered the second-highest number of civil service casualties of any agency during the first Trump administration.

The civil service under Biden has returned to pre-Trump levels, said Marcia Bernica, director general of the Foreign Service and head of the Global Bureau of Talent Management. Executive body of government in July it’s she hopes this progress can be maintained under the new administration.

However, Project 2025 requires hostile tone towards the department.

“There are many excellent diplomats who serve the president’s agenda, often helping to shape and interpret that agenda. At the same time, however, in all administrations there has been a tug-of-war between presidents and the bureaucracy—and this resistance has been much sharper under conservative presidents, in large part because so much of the State Department staff is on the left. wing and are predisposed to disagree with the political agenda and vision of a conservative president,” wrote Kieron K. Skinner, who was senior department officer during Trump’s first term.

She recommended increasing the number of political appointees in the state.

Environmental Protection Agency

The Environmental Protection Agency is in the midst of hiring surge and, in preparation for a possible return to the Trump White House, staff received protection from political interference in their latest union contract.

But the Environmental Protection Agency has long been a target of Republicans, and Trump and his allies have said they plan to roll back environmental regulations and repeal climate funds in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

Mandy Gunasekara, who served as chief of staff at the Environmental Protection Agency during the first Trump administration, said New York Times that a second Trump term would “dismantle and rebuild” the agency’s structure.

Project 2025, in which Gunasekara was involved, proposed that the EPA would “reduce staff by removing new employees from low-value programs” while “identifying relocation opportunities” for senior executive staff. The initiative proposed that EPA cut its budget and reduce its overall workforce.

Ministry of Justice

During the campaign, Trump regularly complained that Biden’s Justice Department was prosecuting him, although the cases against him were prosecuted by a special prosecutor. But Trump himself has repeatedly spoken about using The Justice Department Prosecutes Its Political Enemies.

Beware of Past Appointees who did not comply with his wishes, Trump could attract more loyalists to the department, which could significantly undermine the independence of the Justice Department.

Trump also said he would repeal Biden’s executive order promoting equity programs in the federal government, which he characterized as discriminatory, and direct the Justice Department to “investigate unlawful dominance, discrimination and civil rights violations committed by the Biden administration,” according to the order.

Department of Internal Affairs

During his first time in office, Trump suffered Bureau of Land Management headquarters in Colorado — an action that Biden reversed after taking office. Project 2025 recommends BLM move back to Colorado and also relocation of other federal agencies.

Under Trump, the Interior Department has sought to reassign much of its senior staff. Shake led to general confusion and allegations that the department retaliated against employees working on issues that were not Trump administration priorities, such as climate change.