The conservative group’s “watch list” involves firing federal employees

An organization funded by the conservative Heritage Foundation has compiled an online “watch list” of federal employees who claims cannot be trusted about US border security and must be fired, a sign that supporters of Donald Trump’s immigration policies are preparing to help him neutralize an administrative staff they say has tried to obstruct his first presidency.

The “DHS Bureaucrat Watch List” — a website released in the final weeks of a presidential campaign in which immigration has been a key issue — lists the names of 51 federal policy experts and senior executives, most of whom are career civil servants at the Department of Homeland Security and other bodies. The group identified them mostly based on public comments on social media, previous work experience and campaign finance records.

Among the employee actions cited by the group are posts celebrating the legalization of same-sex marriage or praising the contributions and successes of undocumented immigrants, as well as donations of $10 or more to Democratic candidates. One labor union compared the effort to uncover the private views of government employees to Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s campaign in the 1950s to purge federal workers he accused of being communists.

The site’s founder, a former Republican congressional staffer named Tom Jones, told The Washington Post that he and his staff are looking to add more names to the list and have emailed more than 500 federal employees asking for help identifying colleagues who they believe they are not seeking to keep illegal immigrants out of the country.

Jones said his goal was to expose people he believed had “long-standing and deep-seated biases” about immigration policy. In addition to tracking social media posts and political donations, Jones said he looks for signs of past advocacy on immigration issues, as well as other clues about employee attitudes, such as the exchange of gender pronouns and support for diversity, equity and engagement programs.

“There are a lot of people in the administration who have dedicated their lives to helping immigrants settle in the United States,” Jones said. He said expecting these people to turn back and force Trump to deport tens of millions of people and close the borders, as he promised, was “like Pollyanna.”

“These people are not going to do that. They’re actually going to blow it up,” Jones said. He said he would approve similar efforts for employees in other agencies, including the Department of Defense, the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services.

Jones said he disagreed with Trump’s campaign or transition teams, but hopes any new administration will take note of his work and use it to identify employees to fire.

The list has already drawn the attention of Trump’s allies in Congress, with four GOP House members writing to the head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services demanding that an employee accused of praising undocumented immigrants to be released

While many top government officials have political allegiances and are appointed by the president, the bulk of the federal workforce is made up of approximately 2.2 million career employees who work in agencies in Washington and across the country implementing policy and doing day-to-day business. -day operations country regardless of the responsible party.

In 2020, Trump issued an executive order aimed at removing protections for tens of thousands of government employees by reclassifying them into a new employment category called “Appendix F.” The executive order did not go into effect until Biden took office and rescinded it. Trump has vowed to reissue the order on the first day of his second term if re-elected and vowed to “fire rogue bureaucrats and career politicians.”

Spokespeople for the Trump campaign and the Trump transition did not respond to requests for comment.

Several employees who were hit said they did not want to speak out of fear for their jobs and the safety of their families. The others spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to draw additional attention to themselves or violate agency policy. They said they fear being on the public list makes them vulnerable to threats and that if Trump wins, they will be required to express loyalty to Trump and his party.

“It’s clear that this is done to intimidate career government officials who are public servants who are trying to carry out the department’s mission and do it across all administrations and do it with integrity,” said one staffer on the list.

Another said he was concerned about the impact of the checklist on young people in government, particularly LGBTQ+ workers, “who have to ask themselves, ‘How safe is it for me to be myself here?’

The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents about 86,000 Homeland Security members, drew a parallel with McCarthy, who claimed hundreds of State Department employees were communist traitors and then used his congressional position to investigate.

“This is aimed at intimidating public servants for taking part in the service of their country,” union spokesman Andrew Huddleston said.

Department of Homeland Security officials said the agency contacted the targeted employees to provide security support. “We are extremely proud of the more than 260,000 government employees at DHS who dedicate themselves every day to keeping all Americans safe. We strongly condemn any attempt to harass or intimidate our public servants,” DHS Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas said in a statement.

Some of the named employees work in the Ministry of Justice or the Administration and Budget. A group of employees of the Ministry of Justice focused on gender equality wrote to agency officials Thursday, citing the checklist and warning that the impact of such activities “on the mental health, professional and personal reputation, finances and physical safety of employees can be devastating.”

A Justice Department official said the agency takes employee safety seriously and encourages employees to report any threats to management. OMB did not respond to a request for comment.

Jones countered that the watch list posed security risks to the named employees. “This is a website that tells you about the people who work in the government. It’s an uncontroversial area of ​​research,” Jones told The Post.

Jones previously worked for Republican senators Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Jim DeMint of South Carolina. He also did opposition research for candidates, including Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, during his unsuccessful 2016 bid for the White House.

Jones is now president of the American Accountability Foundation, a nonprofit organization that was formed shortly after the 2020 election and has sought to derail the confirmation of Biden’s political and judicial appointments. The group tried to find and publicize information about the nominees on a website similar to a new watch list, with photos of the targets and details of their past activities and political views. Some of the candidates targeted by the group eventually withdrew their nominations; others, including Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, were confirmed.

The American Foundation for Accountability announced earlier this year that it would turn its focus to public officials. She developed the DHS employee checklist with the help of $100,000 from the Heritage Foundation, a longtime center of conservative power in Washington.

The Heritage Project 2025 policy guide for the second Trump administration, which Trump has denied but was written by many of his former advisers, describes a “significant portion” of federal workers as left-wing ideologues who undermined Trump’s policy goals during his first term.

In a May press release announcing the grant to Jones’ group, Heritage President Kevin Roberts, who led the 2025 project, applauded the group for “their fight to hold our government accountable and rid it of bad actors.”

Heritage is proud to support “critical oversight of government officials who undermine America’s sovereignty and national interests,” spokesman Noah Weinrich said Friday.

Jones told The Post that he and five other employees compiled the list after they sent emails to agency officials naming colleagues who could undermine the immigration crackdown. In one email sent to a Homeland Security official and obtained by The Post, Jones explained that he sought the names of high-ranking officials “who lead those responsible for open borders in the public service.”

“If you are concerned that there are executives in the public service who are not obligated to protect the borders and prevent illegal aliens from entering the United States, I hope you will contact me with their names and details of their work that promotes illegal immigration,” Jones wrote.

DHS officials warned employees last week that clicking on the list’s website could lead to malware attacks on their computers, according to emails reviewed by The Post; Jones responded with a letter claiming the site was safe and warning the agency that his organization could consider legal action.

DHS officials did not respond to The Post’s questions about the dispute.

Peter Jamison contributed to this report.