House Democrats ask GAO to study CISA workforce cuts

A group of prominent House Democrats want the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to study how the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is recovering after deep workforce cuts and changes to its mission.

House Homeland Security Committee ranking member Bennie Thompson (Miss.) and the four Democrats on the panel’s cybersecurity subcommittee — Delia Ramirez (Ill.), Seth Magaziner (R.I.), LaMonica McIver (N.J.) and James Walkinshaw (Va.) — on Thursday asked GAO to examine how the cuts have affected CISA’s ability to “carry out its mission requirements, protect critical infrastructure, and respond to evolving cyber and physical threats.”

Since the start of the second Trump administration, CISA has lost roughly one-third of its employees, including senior career officials and employees who were the driving forces behind major cybersecurity programs. The administration has also dramatically scaled back CISA’s election security work, announced plans to eliminate certain missions and deprioritized the agency’s engagements with state and local governments, critical infrastructure operators and international partners.

Cybersecurity experts have warned that the CISA cuts endanger national security by leaving the country’s primary cyber defense agency incapable of handling the vast array of responsibilities that Congress has assigned it since its creation in 2018.

“Little is known about the impact of these workforce reductions on CISA’s programs and services or what processes and plans the agency has in place to ensure the agency is hiring the right people to address lost skill sets and meet mission demands,” the lawmakers wrote to acting Comptroller General Orice Williams Brown.

They asked GAO to produce a report on how CISA’s staffing levels have changed over the past five years, the effects of workforce reductions on CISA’s programs, feedback on those changes from the agency’s partners and whether the agency collects and uses data to guide workforce decisions.

Growing alarm on Capitol Hill

The letter is the latest in a series of congressional efforts to shed light on how the Trump administration’s handling of CISA has affected the agency.

In mid-June, Senate Intelligence Committee ranking member Mark Warner (D-Va.) asked CISA for information about its remaining resources for state and local governments. “While your efforts to restore some of CISA’s staffing are welcome, they appear insufficient given the scale of threats facing our nation’s cybersecurity and critical infrastructure, particularly at the state level,” Warner wrote.

Earlier in June, Warner urged Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin to restore CISA’s funding of the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center. The agency ceased funding the ISAC at the beginning of October, forcing many state and local governments to cancel their memberships once the ISAC’s operator began charging fees.

Throughout 2025, Democratic lawmakers peppered the Trump administration with questions about a series of CISA-related controversies, including a former acting director’s questionable behavior, agency reorganization efforts and the transfer of CISA funding to immigration detention activities.

CISA’s stalled rebuild

CISA, like other agencies during the Trump administration, has discovered the limitations of a shrunken workforce that lacks key subject-matter experts. In March, the government began taking steps to repair the damage. At the end of that month, as Cybersecurity Dive first reported, DHS approved CISA’s request to hire 329 employees for “critical” positions. As of late August, however, it is unclear if any of those employees have been hired.

The Trump administration’s fiscal year 2027 budget proposed slashing CISA’s funding and eliminating nearly 900 positions. But senior administration officials have since delivered mixed messages about CISA staffing. At a hearing in June, Mullin said DHS wants to recruit roughly 600 more people at CISA.