Congresswoman Simon Supports Fired Federal Workers and Highlights Devastating Impacts of Trump’s Mass Firing of Federal Workers

WASHINGTON, D.C. - This week, Congresswoman Lateefah Simon (D-CA-12) spoke with Misha, a constituent and life-long resident of the East Bay who was recently fired from her job as a federal worker at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Misha helped design and develop digital products for the IRS, making it easier for Americans from different economic and language backgrounds navigate the tax process and receive their tax credits. Congresswoman Simon and Misha spoke about the callousness of President Donald Trump's mass firing of federal workers and how Americans will now lose critical support from the government.

Congresswoman Simon is committed to supporting all fired federal workers and lifting up the contributions of federal workers- if you are a constituent of CA-12 and have been impacted, please reach out to our office directly to share your story.

You can watch the full conversation between Congresswoman Simon and Misha HERE, and read excerpts below.

Congresswoman Lateefah Simon: "I'm really trying, in my new role in Congress to be on the ground with the folks I work for. I work for you. You're my boss. I did learn, unfortunately, that our Administration laid off literally thousands of workers all over the country, pretty much out of nowhere. Can you tell us a little bit about what your job was? The work that you were doing? And when did this work separation happen? And how it's affecting you as a mom and community member?"

Misha: "I was working for the Office of Online Services with the IRS; and the Office of Online Services has all these digital products that American taxpayers can use to figure out how much they owe, whether their refunds are coming, whether they're due any credits, to get some help…As part of the analytics team, my role is to, you know, try to look at the kind of web data that's going in, like how people are accessing the sites, to say: 'Oh, okay, we're getting more Spanish speaking users who are using mobile than desktop,' or 'More desktop users are using English.' Just trying to gather those insights, so that we can make the sites as useful and these web apps as useful for American taxpayers as possible, so we can just make it work…

… We thought that things were getting chaotic once the new Administration came in, but we had no idea that we were going to be just fired. No, no notice. We pretty much knew only the day before, and there's just, like, no warning."

Congresswoman Simon: "During tax season, this is shocking to hear. During a time where we have millions of Americans, particularly low-income Americans, particularly single parents, or folks who are taking care of their loved ones-and they're waiting for a refund and they can't take off three hours to call the IRS to say, 'Where's my refund?'

"What I'm understanding is like you were at the front end of the IRS, trying to make the user experience easier for monolingual residents, for folks like my mom-who loves her new iPhone and even though she's retired and she has social security, she's paying a ton of taxes off of her retirement, and she's waiting for that [refund] to get a new television, right? She's waiting for her refund. These are real staff people creating more quality of life and ease for folks to interact with the systems. And now folks like you are just gone with a day's notice."

Misha: "Well, it wasn't even really a day's notice, because they just told us, 'Hey, it'd be great if everyone could come into the office tomorrow.' And that's what we suspected.

"And so, people are just sitting in the offices realizing that their access to things got cut off. And then eventually the notice that was supposed to terminate people didn't arrive for most of my team. So, they were just like, 'you'll get a note in the mail. Just leave your laptops here.' And like, no information or note about off-boarding. It was just like a one-page letter that I got overnighted in the mail on the weekend."

Congresswoman Simon: "Well, you know as somebody who works for the federal government, as somebody who actually works for you- I want to say, I'm sorry. But that sorry is not good enough. We are going to fight as members of the Democratic Party, …. We actually need you. This Administration, you're right, didn't do what it should have done. If you want to shrink a workforce, it should be a thorough and thoughtful and transparent process that's focused on efficiency. That didn't happen…

"We're working with organizations like Democracy Forward and others to sue the hell out of this Executive Branch every single day. You know, my commitment to you and why I wanted to begin our relationship is… We need federal workers to deliver real services for all of us to be okay, to be okay. IRS workers, Social Security workers, you know our VA workers. You are central to things working.

"So, while I have to apologize, because I'm a part of big government…there is a way forward. It's not fast enough, but we're going to hold their [the Administration's] feet to the fire. We need you. We need you. And I'm so thankful for your service and goodness, if the federal government could be really armed with folks like you from every branch, who deeply care, who have the skills, who want to be involved in the work."

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