Trump admin live updates: Dems react to Hegseth discussing Yemen strike in 2nd chat

Mass firings or Reduction in Force (RIF) terminations were underway Thursday afternoon at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, three CFPB sources told ABC News.

About 1,400 to 1,500 people from an agency that had about 1,700 employees before the Department of Government Efficiency took over are expected to be terminated, sources said. About 200 employees are expected to remain, though it's unclear what their job functions will be.

"We're still counting," one agency lawyer told ABC News after being fired.

"Well I'm now a cancer survivor who's pregnant and laid off," another CFPB employee told ABC News 15 minutes after getting their RIF notice.

In a notice to the terminated employees shared with ABC News, acting CFPB Director Russ Vought wrote that the cuts are “necessary to restructure the Bureau’s operations to better reflect the agency’s priorities and mission."

"You will be separated from Federal service effective June 16, 2025," Vought wrote. "Please be advised that you will retain access to work systems, including email and internal platforms until 6:00 PM Eastern Time, on April 18, 2025. After that time system access will be discontinued, and you will be placed in an administrative leave status through your official separation date as outlined above."

CFPB regulates and enforced student loans and was set up after the 2007-2008 financial crisis to protect consumers from unfair, deceptive, or abusive practices. The agency has a massive amount of data on corporations and businesses collected from its investigations and clawed back billions of dollars for consumers.

-ABC News’ Soo Youn

Trump signed a memo extending the federal hiring freeze for all federal civilian employees in the executive branch until July 15.

Enacting a federal hiring freeze was one of Trump's first actions on Inauguration Day. According to a fact sheet from the White House about the extension, the memo also clarifies that "once a merit hiring plan has been adopted, any hiring of employees exempt from the freeze shall be consistent with that plan."

The fact sheet also says that once the hiring freeze ends, agencies can hire "no more than one employee for every four employees that depart from federal service (with appropriate immigration, law enforcement, and public safety exceptions)."

-ABC News’ Michelle Stoddart

Trump told reporters he was “so happy” that the Supreme Court said it would hear arguments in the birthright citizenship case.

“Well, you’re just telling me that for the first time,” Trump said when a reporter told him of the court’s decision. “I am so happy.”

“I think the case has been so misunderstood. That case, birthright citizenship, is about slavery. If you look at the details of it, the signings of it, everything else, that case is all about slavery,” Trump said, repeating an argument he’s made several times. “And if you view it from that standpoint, people understand it. But for some reason, lawyers don't talk about it. The news doesn't talk about it. That's not about tourists coming in and touching a piece of sand and all of a sudden their citizenship, you know, they're a citizen, that----that is all about slavery.”

“And even look at the dates on which it was signed. It was right at that era during-- right after the Civil War, and if you look at it that way, the case is an easy case to win And I hope the lawyers talk about birthright citizenship and slavery, because that's what it was all about,” Trump continued.

The Supreme Court said Thursday it would hear expedited oral arguments next month over Trump's emergency request to roll back nationwide injunctions against his executive order to end birthright citizenship.

-ABC News’ Fritz Farrow

The Trump administration said in a court filing on Thursday that it will have no updates on its efforts to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

"Given the government’s prior clear and unequivocal notice to the Court, regarding how the government will facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return within the contours of existing law and regulation, there are no further updates,” said Joseph Mazarra, the acting general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security.

The status update was filed hours after a federal court of appeals, issuing a scathing order, denied efforts to appeal the order from Judge Paula Xinis requiring it to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia.