Administration reinstates hundreds of health and safety officials who were laid off
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services building is seen on March 27, 2025 in Washington, DC. The Department of Health and Human Services announced it is cutting 10,000 jobs and closing offices aimed at cutting $1.8 billion (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration took steps this week to reinstate hundreds of health and safety officials who had previously been dismissed in widespread layoffs, granting a major win for advocates of workplace safety.
The newly reinstated employees belong to the National Institute of Safety and Health, or NIOSH, a small federal office within the Department of Health and Human Services that’s focused on protecting coal miners from black lung respiratory disease. Critics of the Trump administration have accused the government of stripping away key protections for miners in its bid to reinvigorate the coal industry, ABC News has previously reported.
“This moment belongs to every single person who refused to stay silent,” Dr. Micah Niemeier-Walsh, an industrial hygienist at NIOSH and the vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees outpost in Washington, D.C., said Wednesday following news of the reinstatements.
In April 2025, hundreds of NIOSH officials were terminated as part of a so-called Reduction in Force, or RIF. Under pressure from lawmakers and labor organizers, the administration brought back some officials months later, and on Tuesday, hundreds more received an email saying the prior “notice is hereby revoked.”
“You are not affected by the RIF and remain employed in your position of record,” according to an email obtained by ABC News.
The reinstatement “ensures the continuation of critical programs that protect all working people, including mine safety research, chemical hazard assessment, and research on emerging occupational risks,” read a statement from AFGE, the federal workers union.
Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, said in a statement that “the Trump Administration is committed to protecting essential services — whether it’s supporting coal miners and firefighters through NIOSH, safeguarding public health through lead prevention, or researching and tracking the most prevalent communicable diseases.”
Nixon confirmed that the reinstatement applies to all NIOSH officials except those who voluntarily left government.
Travelers wait in line at a TSA checkpoint at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia, US. (Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Saturday saw the highest call-out rate of TSA officers at airports since the partial Department of Homeland Security shutdown began, according to exclusive data from the Transportation Safety Administration first obtained by ABC News.
Over 3,250 officers called out Saturday, March 21, according to TSA data, accounting for 11.51% of the scheduled workforce.
Airport security lines are growing nationwide as TSA officers, who haven’t received a paycheck for over three weeks, call out of work. Over the weekend, President Donald Trump posted on his social media platform that he will deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to airports beginning Monday unless Democrats agree to a funding package to end the DHS shutdown.
Democrats are demanding reforms to ICE and Customs and Border Protection policies before they will vote to fund the DHS.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that ICE agents are trained and can assist with airport security. ICE has remained funded through appropriations from the Trump’s tax and spending bill passed last summer, while key DHS agencies like TSA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Coast Guard are left unfunded.
Duffy said that ICE does have proper security training, but could also help by just managing lines. It is unclear how many ICE agents would be sent to airports or which airports they will be sent to.
“We’re simply there to help TSA do their job in areas that don’t need their specialized expertise, such as, you know, screening through the x-ray machine, not trained on that, we won’t do that,” White House Border Czar Tom Homan said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “But there are roles we can play to release TSA officers from the non significant role, such as guarding an exit, so they can get back to the scanning machines and move people quicker.”
There was a nearly four-hour wait Sunday during the 11 a.m. hour to pass through TSA checkpoints at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, according to the TSA.
Saturday, the airports with the highest TSA personnel call-out rates were William P. Hobby Airport in Houston, with 47.4%; George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, with 42.4%; Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, with 34.1%, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, with 33.6%; and John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, with 33.4%.
The president of the union that represents TSA workers issued a statement Sunday blasting what he called the Trump administration’s “threat” to send ICE to airports.
“ICE agents are not trained or certified in aviation security,” American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley in the statement. “TSA officers spend months learning to detect explosives, weapons, and threats specifically designed to evade detection at checkpoints – skills that require specialized instruction, hands-on practice, and ongoing recertification. You cannot improvise that. Putting untrained personnel at security checkpoints does not fill a gap. It creates one.”
“Our members at TSA have been showing up every day, without a paycheck, because they believe in the mission of keeping the flying public safe,” Kelley said. “They deserve to be paid, not replaced by untrained, armed agents who have shown how dangerous they can be.”
Other airports with call-out numbers over 20% Saturday included Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, Chicago Midway International Airport, Charlotte Douglas International Airport, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, Long Beach Airport, Pittsburgh International Airport, and Luis Munoz Marin International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Airports with high wait times Saturday included Luis Munoz Marin International Airport, with wait times of roughly two-and-a-half hours in the standard TSA line; George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, with wait times of over two hours; LaGuardia, with wait times of one hour and 40 minutes, and Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport, with wait times of an hour-and-a-half.
Footage newly obtained by ABC News appears to show the moment that the man suspected of opening fire at Brown University in December fled the Ivy League campus following the tragic incident. (Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office)
(PROVIDENCE, R.I.) — Footage newly obtained by ABC News appears to show the moment that the man suspected of opening fire at Brown University in December fled the Ivy League campus following the tragic incident.
Officials believe Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, 48, is seen on a dash camera video recorded from a Brown University shuttle vehicle on Dec. 13 around dusk, walking through a parking lot adjacent to Barus and Holley, the building that includes the Providence, Rhode Island, school’s physics department.
His right hand appears to be in his pocket as he then jaywalks nonchalantly across Hope Street toward an adjacent residential neighborhood.
The Rhode Island Office of the Attorney General confirmed to ABC News that the footage is believed to depict the shooter and that the video was recorded immediately following the shooting.
The video was released in response to a public records request filed by ABC News. Authorities are currently declining to release many additional records associated with the response to the incident.
Neves Valente, a former Brown graduate student suspected to have been motivated by a lengthy grudge, shot and killed students Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov and Ella Cook inside a final exam review session, according to authorities.
Nine others were wounded in the shooting, officials said at the time.
At some point after the shooting, police say Neves Valente traveled to the Boston suburbs and killed Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Nuno Loureiro near his Brookline home.
Neves Valente later crossed the New Hampshire state line by a few yards and took his own life at a self-storage facility as authorities sought to take him into custody, according to police.
The video recorded by the shuttle bus was referenced in a Providence Police criminal affidavit against Neves Valente that noted, “This was observed to be at 16:03, immediately after the shooting.”
The footage appears to indicate that the tragedy that occurred inside Barus and Holley was not evident to people on the street outside, with a handful of pedestrians seen casually walking nearby.
A Brown University police car can be seen parked on the curb. Around 25 seconds after Neves Valente fled the scene, another police car can be seen driving down Hope Street. Its blue emergency lights were flashing.
Marimar Martinez, a Chicago teacher’s assistant who survived being shot five times by a U.S. Border Patrol agent in October 2025, attends a press conference with her lawyers at the law offices of Cheronis & Parente LLC and Gallagher & Kosner Law LLC on February 11, 2026, in Chicago, Illinois, United States. (Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(CHICAGO) — Last October, the Department of Homeland Security claimed that federal agents in Chicago were “forced to deploy their weapons and fire defensive shots at an armed US citizen” after their SUV was “rammed by vehicles and boxed in by 10 cars.”
But analysis of recently released body-camera footage of the shooting of Marimar Martinez and videos verified by nearby businesses and bystanders suggests that those claims were exaggerated — and that federal agents, knowing their actions were being recorded, appeared to coordinate with one another to explain their conduct that day.
Body camera footage and other evidence was released Tuesday after a federal judge last week granted a motion to permit the public release of the materials in the case.
The video shows that in the minute before the shooting, agents were being followed by two, not 10 vehicles. Agents stated they were “boxed in,” but at no time was their vehicle blocked from the front.
At no point in footage from an agent’s body-worn camera or from multiple surveillance cameras is a driver seen ramming the agents’ vehicle; instead, the video shows an agent appearing to steer toward the vehicle driven by Martinez, crashing into her, and then rapidly firing toward her.
Martinez, a U.S. citizen and teacher’s assistant, was shot five times during the incident. She’s now planning to sue DHS and the agent for allegedly making false claims about her following the shooting and labeling her a domestic terrorist.
While prosecutors originally alleged that Martinez “aggressively and erratically” pursued officers that day, a judge dismissed the criminal case against her with prejudice after a reversal by the Department of Justice, which sought to dismiss the case.
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesperson said in a statement that the officer who shot Martinez was placed on administrative leave following the incident. The statement did not indicate the length of the administrative leave or when it began.
“CBP is committed to the highest standards of conduct, transparency, and accountability. All significant use-of-force incidents are thoroughly investigated, reviewed, and presented to the National Use of Force Review Board (NUFRB), an independent body comprised of senior CBP officials and representatives from DHS and DOJ, including the DOJ Civil Rights Division,” the statement said.
Below is a timeline of the incident based on the body camera footage and bystander video leading up to and after the shooting.
The lead-up 10:27:02 a.m.
Three federal agents are riding in an SUV in the first moments of video from an agent’s body-worn camera. Later, the video will reveal an Uber placard on the front of their SUV. One agent is seen speaking into the voice chat app on a nearby phone.
At the time, the Trump administration had surged federal resources for immigration enforcement in Chicago as part of “Operation Midway Blitz.”
According to a court filing, the agents were part of a protective detail assisting a nearby operation in Oaklawn. An FBI agent originally attested that the officers were being followed by multiple civilian vehicles.
10:28:17 a.m.
The agent’s body camera begins recording audio.
“Camera’s on,” the agent says.
The agent readies an assault rifle. With his finger on the trigger, one of the agents can be heard saying what sounds like either “do something, b—-,” or “hit something, b—-.”
10:28:35 a.m.
Another agent is seen pointing his handgun toward the right of the SUV.
A nearby driver repeatedly honks their horn, prompting one of the officers to remark, “Honk all you want.”
The agents’ vehicle is captured on a security camera on Kedzie Avenue. The SUV is flanked by Martinez, in a gray Nissan Rogue, to the agents’ left.
To their right is a GMC SUV, adorned with a Mexican flag on its hood, driven by Anthony Ruiz. Ahead of them are two cars: a sedan and a red pickup truck.
10:28:47 a.m.
Seconds later, the agent with the active body-worn camera says, “Alright, it’s time to get aggressive, get the f—- out. Because they’re trying to box us in.”
“If she hits us, it’s … ,” another agent can be heard saying.
10:28:57 a.m.
Charles Exum, the driver, appears to be the agent who says, “We’re going to make contact, we’re boxed in … we have got to get [inaudible] out of here. “
“We are boxed in,” the agent with the active body-worn camera repeats.
10:28:58 a.m.
The three vehicles briefly enter the frame of a security camera looking over a gas station parking lot.
Martinez, in the Nissan Rogue, is parallel with the agents to their left. Ruiz is behind them and to their right.
The pickup truck and the sedan, previously observed ahead of the agents’ vehicle, are also observed traveling several car lengths ahead of the agents.
10:29:01 a.m.
Exum appears to turn the car’s wheel to the left. A loud crash is heard, and the agents visibly react.
By this time, the two cars ahead of the agents have driven into the path of another security camera. The cars do not stop and drive out of view.
The shooting 10:29:04 a.m.
The agents’ vehicle comes to a stop. Their vehicle and Ruiz’s are seen stopped at the rightmost edge of the gas station security footage. The view of Martinez’s vehicle is blocked, and we do not see the agents’ vehicle make contact with hers.
Exum is seen holding a handgun in his right hand.
10:29:06 a.m.
“Out of the car,” the driver says, as he exits the car with his handgun drawn.
“Be advised, we’ve been struck, we’ve been struck,” the agent with the body-worn camera says.
A second later, five gunshots can be heard in rapid succession.
The agents’ SUV enters the field of view of another security camera. A drawing of the scene — made by one of the agents during their interview with the FBI, according to Martinez’s lawyers — indicated three vehicles were ahead of the agents’ SUV, but the footage shows that at the moment of the shooting, the agents’ vehicle has an unobstructed path forward.
10:29:09 a.m.
Martinez’s vehicle enters the frame of the security camera. She drives north, away from the scene.
10:29:11 a.m.
The agent with the body-worn camera points his rifle toward Ruiz’s vehicle, as it reverses and crashes into a parked car before turning to the left to drive away. Ruiz is later arrested at a gas station a half block away.
“Don’t you f—— move,” the officer says.
10:29:18 a.m.
As the agent turns around, his body camera shows that the SUV is not being blocked in front of it.
The aftermath 10:32:49 a.m.
Exum’s body-worn camera turns on about three minutes after firing his weapon.
10:39:19 a.m.
Exum tells a responding officer that he fired “five to seven shots” at Martinez.
“I don’t know if I hit her or not,” he says. “I [was] angled at the driver, I got five to seven rounds off at her.”
“It was a woman shooting?” the officer asked.
“No, I was shooting,” Exum said.
10:39:38 a.m.
Exum tells a responding officer that he “did the shooting” after Martinez hit his SUV.
“She already hit my vehicle, we got out to defend, she came forward, and that’s when I opened up on her,” he said. “We did not get shot at; we did the shooting.”
10:45:04 a.m.
As more officers arrive at the scene, Exum and the other agents begin to recount the incident and to ask whether his camera was on.
“We were getting out to defend because they already tried to box us in,” he said. “She was moving forward into me.”
“Camera on or no?” an officer said.
“No, I didn’t have it because we were [inaudible],” he said.
“That’s good, as long as you can justify it, bro,” the officer responds.
10:48:14 a.m.
As Exum prepares to light a cigarette, another officer acknowledges that their conversation is being recorded and advises him to “keep everything out.”
“So she hit you guys … You got boxed in?” an officer asked.
“We [were] getting boxed in, and I had to push left. She came in, she pulled over, stopped. I got out so we could defend,” Exum said.
“Hey, hey, just real quick though, since we’re recording, keep it [inaudible],” another officer says. “Keep everything out, you’re good man.”
10:50:30 a.m.
Another officer tells Exum to “keep [his] mouth shut” about the incident.
“Just so you know, you don’t give statements to anybody,” the officer says. “Absolutely no statements at all … You keep your mouth shut.”
