State Department Fires 1,353 Employees in a Single Day, Days After the Supreme Court Cleared the Way

On Friday, July 11, 2025, the State Department sent reduction-in-force notices to 1,353 employees - 1,107 civil service staff and 246 foreign service officers - as the final phase of Secretary Marco Rubio's reorganization. Counting earlier voluntary departures, close to 3,000 people were expected to leave. Offices eliminated or gutted included the admissions office of the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration; the global programs office of the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, which administered 391 active grants; the leadership of the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts; and the multilateral affairs office in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. The department moved days after the Supreme Court paused the injunction that had blocked government-wide reductions in force.

The cuts fell disproportionately on the offices handling refugee admissions, human rights programming and Afghan resettlement, functions Congress had funded by statute. The American Foreign Service Association said the layoffs were "untethered from merit or mission" and signaled that "the United States is pulling back from the world stage."

Democratic senators said the reductions would "severely undermine the Department's ability to achieve U.S. foreign policy interests." The department proceeded with the notices, and litigation over the underlying reduction-in-force authority continued in the lower courts.