U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) is slamming the Trump administration for needlessly firing federal employees who work on the front lines of America’s opioid crisis.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has now terminated more than 100 Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) employees since the start of the Trump administration, reducing its staff to less than 50 percent capacity. SAMHSA provides key addiction and mental health treatment services, with a focus on rural and underserved areas, and is responsible for programs like the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. The layoffs, part of another government-wide reduction in force carried out earlier this month by the Trump administration, will likely lead to more Americans falling into addiction because they will be unable to access SAMHSA’s critical addiction prevention and treatment services.
“The Trump administration is needlessly slashing staff for critical mental health and substance use disorder programs that millions of Americans rely on,” said Senator Gillibrand. “These cuts are deeply harmful to New Yorkers, and our communities will bear the cost of this recklessness – in lives lost, families broken, and public trust further eroded. I’ll keep pushing back against this dangerous decision and fight to ensure that every person can access the mental health and substance use disorder resources that they need.”
Gillibrand joined Senators Alex Padilla (D-CA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) and 12 other Democratic colleagues in calling on HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to immediately reverse these terminations and support federal employees’ work to keep Americans safe and healthy.
“SAMHSA is a critical first responder on the front lines of our nation’s ongoing substance use and mental health crises,” the senators wrote in their letter to Kennedy. “The firing of key staff at this agency threatens to undermine years of hard-won progress on the opioid crisis, and could not come at a worse time. Right now, communities across the country – in both red and blue states – continue to face record overdose deaths and escalating rates of mental health conditions and substance use disorder.”
Kennedy’s decision to purge public health professionals not only derails progress made by a workforce with irreplaceable experience, but it also contradicts the administration’s pledge to tackle the fentanyl crisis, expand mental health services, and end the opioid epidemic.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 73,000 people died from overdoses between April 2024 to April 2025. The senators’ letter further warned that these terminations will likely lead to more opioid-related deaths and illicit drugs flowing into communities across the United States.
This letter is part of Gillibrand’s ongoing effort to address the opioid crisis in New York and across the country, and hold the Trump administration accountable in fulfilling its promise to address it. Earlier this year, Gillibrand sounded the alarm about the Trump administration’s decision to terminate a program that helps prevent fatal opioid overdoses, expressing concern about the administration’s reported decision to terminate a $56 million annual grant program that distributes and provides training to administer the opioid overdose reversal medication naloxone. Following Gillibrand’s advocacy, the Trump administration reconsidered its decision and renewed the program.
In addition to Gillibrand, Padilla, and Wyden, the letter to HHS was signed by Senators Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Edward Markey (D-MA), Jack Reed (D-RI), Tina Smith (D-MN), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), and Mark Warner (D-VA).
The full text of the letter can be found here.
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