US public lands will “pay the price” of a drive by Donald Trump’s officials to restructure the agency that oversees them, union leaders have warned, accusing the administration of forcing workers to decide whether to relocate or resign.

All regional offices of the US Forest Service, which manages 78m hectares (193m acres) of land – roughly the size of Texas – are set to close as part of an overhaul launched by the Trump administration. The service has already shed hundreds of staff members since Trump returned to power last year.

The latest restructuring, announced on 30 March, includes a move to relocate the agency’s headquarters from Washington DC to Salt Lake City, Utah; the consolidation of 57 research facilities into a single site in Colorado; and the closure of regional offices across the country in favor of 15 politically appointed “state directors”.

“Trump’s moves are illegal, because this kind of activity was explicitly prohibited in fiscal year 2026 appropriations,” said Steve Lenkart, executive director of the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), which represents 20,000 workers at the service. “The Republican Congress is allowing the White House to break the law and violate the constitution, without so much as a peep from our big, brave, so-called freedom-seeking Republicans. They won’t even uphold their own oaths to support and defend the constitution from tyranny.”

Lenkart and his allies point to a section of the fiscal year 2026 budget that stipulates funding for the agency cannot be put towards a reprogramming that “relocates an office or employees” or “reorganizes or renames offices, programs, or activities”.

The US Forest Service and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which oversees the service, did not comment on the allegation of illegality.

The NFFE has condemned the restructuring plan. “The Trump administration cannot dress up a mass workforce disruption as commonsense management,” said Randy Erwin, its national president. “Uprooting their careers and blowing up the structure they work within is not a reform. It is chaos, and the American public and our public lands will pay the price.”

Steven Gutierrez, a former US Forest Service firefighter and business representative at the federation, said the plan didn’t feel like a reorganization. “This is more than a reorganization,” he said. “For many employees, it feels like relocate or resign.”

The union was informed of the changes less than 30 minutes before the news was made public, according to Gutierrez. “They’re going to take these folks that are typically in rural areas of the country and move them into the city, which kind of doesn’t make a lot of sense,” he said. “A lot of their work is out there in these rural areas of our national forest, and it’s tremendously important work that they’re doing, and now they don’t even know if they’re going to be able to continue the research that they’ve been doing for years now.”

The US Forest Service conducts research into making better safety equipment; improving wood, paper and pulp products; and improving fire safety. This work will be at risk if workers at the agency are forced to resign, Gutierrez said.

“You don’t strengthen the Forest Service by pushing experienced public servants out the door,” he argued. “You’re not doing any favors to the public by pushing all this experience out the door, by saying, ‘Pick up your life, move to Salt Lake City, or move to another facility that’s five hours away, and upend your entire life’.

“Then whether you’re guaranteed a job there, with all the attacks on federal workers this administration has had, how much confidence you really have that you’re going to still have a job after you’ve been forced to move?”

Under the second Trump administration, the agency has already faced significant cuts and staffing losses. The US Forest Service attempted to fire 3,400 probationary employees in February 2025, but they were all reinstated after a court decision temporarily blocked the firings. Only a few dozen workers were ultimately fired in total, but hundreds left the agency through early retirements or resignation buyouts, losing more than a quarter of the agency’s full-time workforce, including as many as 1,400 wildfire-certified employees.

An analysis found wildfire mitigation work declined by 38% in 2025 compared with the previous four years. An internal agency report obtained by the Washington Post found the agency’s trail maintenance declined by 22% – the lowest level in the past 15 years.

In a statement on the restructuring, the USDA secretary, Brooke Rollins, said: “Establishing a western headquarters in Salt Lake City and streamlining how the Forest Service is organized will position the chief [of the Forest Service] and operation leaders closer to the landscapes we manage and the people who depend on them.”

The USDA said the total number of relocations were unknown at this time. It did not comment on criticism of the restructuring.

“These changes are designed to unify research priorities, accelerate the application of science to management decisions and reduce administrative duplication,” a USDA spokesperson said. “As part of this transition, all regional offices will close; however, several facilities will be retained to support ongoing mission needs.”