Some Veterans Affairs workers based in Colorado said they’ve been reinstated or told they would be hired back. 

Bilal Torens, an Air Force veteran who served in Kuwait and Qatar, said his supervisor called him on Thursday and asked him if he would like to have his job back — to which he replied yes. 

Torens had only been with the department as a social worker associate since December. He is still waiting for word on when to return to the office, but he said he was assured he would get back pay for the last month. 

Sources who wished to remain anonymous told The Denver Gazette that the news was announced at a town hall meeting on Friday morning, in addition to reports that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs might not appeal a ruling from a judge. 

Chris Jones, a retired Air Force colonel who served as a labor and employment attorney for Veteran Affairs, started working as an attorney with the department in August — so he was still considered a probationary employee.

At roundtable with U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper on Tuesday, Jones said he had just been reinstated hours earlier.

Hickenlooper visited the Colorado Division of Veterans Affair’s Aurora Health Center this month to talk with some 20 probationary workers who had been fired.

In the last two months, Democrats have held news conferences, sent letters or sued the Trump administration. At a separate event, Hickenlooper outlined the Democrats’ strategy to block or slow down Trump and the Republican-dominated Congress, including deploying parliamentary maneuvers and becoming more “potent” on social media. The strategy includes litigation, he said. 

Jones’ reinstatement comes after U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled on March 13 that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management does not have the power to order firings and that probationary employees can only be fired due to performance reasons.

“Firing all of these employees without a thought, then having to rehire them. It’s a waste. It’s an absolute waste,” Jones said. “Not only is it a waste of time and money, it breaks the trust of these employees and veterans.”

The firings at the VA were part of a slew of actions by the Trump administration to cut down what it described as a federal government that is too bloated and too much money being lost to waste and fraud. The government has some $36 trillion in debt and ran a $1.8 trillion deficit last year. Trump officials have argued that the changes need to begin with shrinking the size of the federal bureaucracy.

Trump allies have also argued that running trillion-dollar deficits means successive federal governments have decided to sacrifice the future stability of generations of Americans in order to pay for today’s spending programs.

“The VA has bloat. There are redundancies. There are places where we have questioned the administration of care and asked, does it need to be the way it is?” Pat Murray, the legislative director for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which represents Americans who have fought overseas, said in an interview with Reuters.

VA Secretary Doug Collins earlier said his plan is to push out 83,000 VA employees by August in order to return to 2019 staffing levels of just under 400,000. That translates to a 15% cut. The VA workforce had expanded to 482,000 during the Biden administration, in part to cover veterans affected by burn pits under the 2022 PACT Act.

The workforce at the VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System, which employs around 3,700 staff serving more than 110,000 veterans, had fluctuated over the years — about 3,500 in 2019 and in 2021, 4,000. At 3,700 workers, the 50 employees fired last month represent about 1.4% of the workforce.  

“The talk about waste, fraud and abuse in the Veterans Administration drives me nuts,” Hickenlooper said during the roundtable.

Veterans who joined Hickenlooper said the positions at the VA are essential.

“You’re saying that we’re not essential. How are we not essential?” asked Brett Taylor, a disabled Iraq war combat veteran who worked for the VA as a social worker associate before being laid off in February. “I started off at the VA as a housekeeper. Every position in the VA is essential.”

Ryan Bevard, a social worker associate who was one month from getting off the probationary period before he was let go, said the layoffs are directly affecting the veterans that rely on the VA for help.

“It’s affecting the veterans themselves. The ones we were trying to house, the ones we were trying to help. All of the delays with being short-staffed are affecting them,” he said.

The uncertainty is also affecting veteran spouses and children, according to Carol Reszka, program manager at Aurora Mental Health and Recovery. 

“Just the up and down is very difficult on children and families as a whole,” Reszka said. “Not being able to know what’s going to happen tomorrow puts stress on families that already have an incredible amount of stress.”

Reuters contributed to this report.