Demolition Asbestos Poisons Workers at DHS Headquarters (SCOOP)
Trump’s embattled DHS secretary Kristi Noem ordered historic buildings demolished. Now her workers are inhaling asbestos on the daily — and are not happy about it.
WASHINGTON — Homeland Security employees working at the department’s St. Elizabeths West Campus in Washington, D.C., say they are being forced to breathe in asbestos dust from demolition work ordered by Secretary Kristi Noem with no masks, no respirators and virtually no warning signs to protect them.
DHS staff assigned to offices near the cluster of 19th- and early 20th‑century buildings that Noem has moved to demolish under an “emergency” order describe a worksite where asbestos-abatement crews in full protective gear operate only yards away from federal employees told to carry on as normal, despite potentially cancer‑causing fibers drifting through shared hallways and ventilation systems.
“They basically just said ‘Good luck,’” said one DHS official who complained internally after noticing workers wearing hazmat-style suits moving in and out of a nearby structure while agency staff walked past in office clothes with no protective equipment at all.