Helen Dhue was flying home after a work trip to Ajo, Ariz., for the National Park Service on Friday, she said. But when she landed in Dallas for a layover, she found out she had been fired. She tried to log on to her work email, but her access was already cut off.
Turns out, Ms. Dhue, a 23-year-old park guide at Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park, was one of 1,000 National Park Service employees affected by the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal work force, according to groups that represent public lands and parks workers.
“The department determined that you have failed to demonstrate fitness or qualifications for continued employment because your subject matter knowledge, skills and abilities do not meet the department’s current needs,” read the email, which was sent to Ms. Dhue while she was in the air. (She later obtained a printed copy of the email from her boss.)
The department did not immediately provide comments for this article on Saturday.
The National Park Service firings came as the Trump administration escalated its efforts to cull the federal work force. Workers were also fired at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Agriculture Department and the Energy Department, among other agencies, on Friday.
Many of the dismissals have targeted the roughly 200,000 federal workers who were on probationary status, generally because they had started their positions within the last year. Some fired employees, including some at the National Park Service, have already indicated that they will appeal.
Mr. Trump and his supporters have backed the moves as a way to cut what they see as unnecessary government spending. “President Trump was elected with a mandate to create a more effective and efficient federal government that serves all Americans, and we are doing just that,” said a spokesperson for the E.P.A. after that agency announced layoffs.
But Tim Whitehouse, executive director of the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said a shrinking work force, at least at the National Park Service, is “not going to save the government any money.”
“It’s going to degrade our parks, demoralize people that work very hard for very little money, and make the government a hostile place to be,” he said, adding that the layoffs at the park service were cruel and appeared random. “But I think that’s the intention.”
Mr. Whitehouse said his organization was in touch with affected workers and was exploring the possibility of litigation.
He added that even though the Trump administration had instructed the National Park Service to move forward with hiring 5,000 seasonal employees, whose positions had been frozen, the service was well behind schedule. And the additional seasonal workers would still fall short of the service’s needs, Mr. Whitehouse said.
Staffing shortfalls could hit hard during the spring and summer, peak seasons for visits to the parks and historic sites run by the agency, said Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of government affairs for the National Parks Conservation Association.
Visitor centers may be open only a few days a week, which means restrooms will be locked and won’t be cleaned as frequently. Long-delayed projects to fix potholes and remove mold from facilities will probably be delayed even more. And experienced guides may no longer be available to inform visitors about the wonders and nuances of a park system that draws 325 million visitors a year.
“That leaves people who are visiting with a bad taste in their mouths,” Ms. Brengel said.
The cuts could also strain the nearby communities that depend on park visitors to drive up business, she said.
“If someone has a terrible day and just looks at their family and says, ‘Forget about it,’ and leaves, that means the person who owns the hotel isn’t getting paid, the people who work in the hotel aren’t getting paid, the people who would make dinner and breakfast for these folks.”
It also means fewer enthusiastic park rangers like Ms. Dhue.
After working a couple of temporary jobs at parks in Mississippi and California, Ms. Dhue was thrilled to start a permanent position with the park service in Brownsville, Texas, in August. She helped run the front desk and chatted with visitors as they navigated Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park, which commemorates the first battle of the Mexican-American War.
“Parks build community,” she said. “I’m sad to see that that’s being threatened right now.”
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