The Federal Emergency Management Agency on Monday reinstated 14 employees who had been on administrative leave since August, when they wrote a letter to Congress warning that President Trump was gutting disaster response in the United States.
The move ended more than three months of uncertainty for the employees, who had been subject to an internal investigation into what the Trump administration deemed their “misconduct.”
In notices sent to the workers last week, copies of which were reviewed by The New York Times, FEMA officials wrote that “the misconduct investigation has been closed, and as a result you are being removed from administrative leave.”
The notices did not disclose the inquiry’s findings. Representatives for FEMA and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Of the 14 employees, one was initially fired in mid-November, according to David Z. Seide, a lawyer with the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit group that helped the workers file complaints challenging their suspensions with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel. That worker was subsequently reinstated after her lawyers argued that her termination violated federal laws protecting whistle-blowers, Mr. Seide said.
“FEMA properly recognized that we had very strong arguments,” he said. “We believe that FEMA did the right thing and that its actions will set an important precedent for other agencies.”
Abby McIlraith, an emergency management specialist at the agency who helped organize the letter to Congress, said on Monday that she was relieved to be returning to work. She said that although the administrative leave had been paid, “I like to call it the most stressful three-month paid vacation I’ve ever been on.”
Ms. McIlraith said she had no regrets about signing the letter or speaking to reporters about her experience. “If they want to put me right back on administrative leave or fire me, I mean, I’m prepared to fight that again,” she said.
The letter to Congress, titled the “Katrina Declaration,” rebuked Mr. Trump’s plan to drastically scale down FEMA and shift more responsibility for disaster response to state officials. It came days before the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, one of the deadliest and costliest storms to ever strike the United States.
The letter accused the Trump administration of violating the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act, which Congress passed after the storm shook national confidence in the government’s ability to handle disasters. The landmark law required FEMA administrators to have a “demonstrated ability in and knowledge of emergency management.”
But Mr. Trump installed first one and then another acting FEMA administrator who lacked experience in emergency management. The second acting head, David Richardson, told employees in June that he did not know the United States had a hurricane season, a comment that unnerved many workers. The agency later said he had been joking.
After Mr. Richardson resigned last month, Karen Evans, a senior political appointee at FEMA, took over as acting administrator on Monday. Ms. Evans has a background in cybersecurity, and this year she led an overhaul of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
Of the 192 current and former FEMA employees who signed the letter, 35 attached their names, while the rest withheld their identities for fear of retaliation. And of those 35, 14 were placed on administrative leave, while the rest have left the agency after accepting buyout offers or other jobs.
The FEMA workers organized the letter alongside Stand Up for Science, a nonprofit group that has protested the Trump administration’s cuts to federally funded scientific research. The group helped coordinate a similar letter in June that accused the administration of politicizing and sidelining the Environmental Protection Agency. After that letter, the E.P.A. placed 144 employees on administrative leave and then fired seven of them.
The reinstated FEMA workers are now returning to an agency whose future is uncertain.
In Mr. Trump’s first months back in office, he said that the agency should “go away” after the hurricane season and that governors should handle more disasters on their own. He also established a task force to consider whether the agency should be abolished or overhauled.
But in the wake of the July 4 floods that devastated the Texas Hill Country, Mr. Trump and his aides seemed to soften their stance on FEMA. During a visit to the disaster zone in Texas, Mr. Trump said that “some good people” were running the agency.
In recent weeks, the task force presented Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, with a draft report that called for overhauling but preserving FEMA in some form. The final report is scheduled to be made public next week, and it is unclear whether Ms. Noem or Mr. Trump will accept its recommendations.
Maxine Joselow covers climate change and the environment for The Times from Washington.
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