My mom has worked for FEMA since 2009, so growing up, the agency always felt like family. My mom’s coworkers let my brother and I literally drag them through the mud as kids, and they took me dress shopping for high school dances when my mom was deployed. I never thought I’d want to work for the agency; I dreamt of becoming a midwife and delivering babies. In early 2020, I was in my 2nd semester of nursing school, but the pandemic and family health circumstances pushed me to put a pause on school. In 2021, My mom urged to join FEMA Corps, so I applied… for the wrong program. Instead of FEMA Corps, I applied to AmeriCorps NCCC Traditional, which I did not realize until I received my acceptance. So, I spent 10 months chopping down trees, building a house, and feeding the public along the west coast. After my time with the traditional corps, I moved on to FEMA Corps where I worked on preparedness, individual assistance, and public assistance programs. I loved the work in FEMA Corps, so I applied to a Public Assistance position at FEMA Region 7 in Kansas City, Missouri, which I started in April of 2023. I later moved to a disaster mitigation position in June of 2024, which is my current position. In mid 2025, I was invited to help with the Katrina Declaration. Frustrated by decisions made by the current administration and worried about the consequences of those decisions to disaster survivors and public safety, I accepted and helped research for and edit the letter, then I publicly signed it. 36 hours after my name was published alongside the declaration, I was placed on administrative leave, which strained the nearly 500 disaster assistance applicants I was working with and my team -already stretched thin across regional disasters and lost team members due to the deferred resignation program and resignations. The week of thanksgiving, I was notified that I would return to work on December 1st. That morning I was ecstatic, but 7 hours into my shift the excitement wore off when I received an email placing me back on administrative leave. Now, I am once again in administrative leave limbo. The agency’s legal counsel has recognized our whistleblower protections stating, “the employee[’s] actions are protected under the Whistleblower Protection Act (5 U.S.C. 2302(b)(8)) and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.” and recommending, “that this matter is closed with no disciplinary action” in internal communications regarding personnel investigations that were provided to congress. However, DHS publicly stated the reinstatements were “unauthorized” and issued by “bureaucrats acting outside of their authority.”
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