DOGE expected to take aim at DHS with staffing cuts, including at US Secret Service

(CNN) — Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is expected to take aim at the Department of Homeland Security in the coming days, seeking potentially major cuts to personnel across its agencies, including the US Secret Service, multiple sources tell CNN.

DHS is bracing for what could amount to significant layoffs, four sources familiar with the matter who were granted anonymity to speak freely told CNN, though no final decisions have been made, and the ultimate scale and scope has not been set.

This week, two of the sources said, there was back-and-forth negotiation and lobbying between DOGE, the White House, and Homeland Security leadership, with each of the department’s components expected to be impacted differently. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, is expected to be decimated, one of the sources said.

Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement are also facing potential cuts, two of the sources said.

A senior DHS official told CNN the department is “determined to eliminate government waste that has been happening for decades at the expense of the American taxpayer. Across DHS, we will be eliminating non-mission critical positions and bureaucratic hurdles that undermine our mission to secure the homeland. Secretary Noem is determined to return DHS to its core mission of keeping America safe.”

CNN has reached out to DHS and DOGE for comment. The Secret Service declined to comment.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is expected to send an email to her department’s personnel in the coming days laying out the expected cuts, with a separate email in the works detailing potential options for employees to include voluntary separations and early retirements. One of the sources made clear that Noem’s name may be on that email – but it is top Trump aide Stephen Miller, DOGE and other White House staff making the key decisions.

Cuts to the Secret Service would come at a particularly challenging time for the agency, which has been strained by what top officials have cast as an unprecedented and dynamic threat environment, including two assassination attempts on President Donald Trump last summer. The agency has been wracked with low morale, burnout, low staffing, and retention issues.

The agency spent an unprecedented $2 million last February on a television recruiting advertisement, tapping blockbuster movie director Michael Bay for the ad.

Officials have repeatedly argued in testimony on Capitol Hill following the assassination attempt on Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, that the agency is underfunded and under-resourced.

Any cuts at the agency, one of the sources said, are likely to impact administrative and technical staff, but could also impact new hires and those who are within their probationary period, positions that are more easily cut. It is not expected, that source said, to immediately impact the agency’s core missions and readiness – though it could in time, particularly if those in law enforcement roles need to backfill vacant support positions.

There is tremendous anxiety about what could ultimately take place at the USSS among rank-and-file staff, the sources said, and hesitancy to speak to reporters due to the threat of polygraph tests.

“It’s hard for the Service to execute on a strategy, which is to bolster their resources and funding – especially in the wake of the attack on President Trump in Butler. How do they build that strategy now having to reduce a workforce?” questioned Jonathan Wackrow, a CNN contributor and former USSS agent.

Wackrow continued, “The mission is not directly impacted with what is being proposed at this moment – but it will over time. You start creating these intrinsic vulnerabilities in your workforce that could lead to another Butler.”

News of the potential cuts sent shockwaves across DHS component agencies Saturday, multiples sources said, with personnel desperately seeking clarity from their managers regarding whether they might be impacted.

At the Secret Service, senior managers told personnel Saturday that DHS was conducting a downsizing assessment for each of its component agencies, sources said, but any possible cuts remained unclear. Senior Secret Service officials also told the rank-and-file they were awaiting further clarity from DHS leadership, which they hoped to have in the coming days.

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