The U.S. government’s cybersecurity agency is scrambling to contact more than 130 former employees after a federal court ruled that the Trump administration must reinstate workers it “unlawfully” fired.
U.S. District Judge James Bredar last week ordered the Trump administration to reinstate employees laid off across a number of U.S. government agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
The ruling focuses on federal probationary employees, which include workers who were hired or promoted within the past three years. CISA fired 130 probationary employees in February, as part of the Trump administration’s broad push to slash the federal workforce.
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CISA is now seeking to contact the since-fired employees, according to a message displayed on CISA’s website. The message indicates the agency doesn’t have contact information for all of the former employees it fired — or isn’t aware of all the staffers who were affected by the cuts.
“CISA is making every effort to individually contact all impacted individuals,” the message reads, adding that fired employees who believe they fall under the court’s order to “please reach out.”
Per the website notice, CISA is asking affected former staffers to email a “password protected attachment that provides your full name, your dates of employment (including date of termination), and one other identifying factor such as date of birth or social security number.”
The cyber agency is also reportedly asking for the password to be sent by email to the same mailbox.
When asked by TechCrunch if this was accurate, CISA spokesperson Jared Auchey declined to comment.
CISA has confirmed that rehired employees will be immediately placed on administrative leave with full pay and benefits.
TechCrunch last week learned of further cuts affecting CISA in late February and early March, two sources affected by the layoffs told TechCrunch. The cuts affected around a hundred individuals, including those who worked on CISA’s red teams.
