DHS orders employees back to work following Trump mandate and ahead of expected mass deportations

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Department of Homeland Security employees have been ordered back to the office as the agency follows through with new President Donald Trump’s executive order and ahead of his expected mass deportations of illegal migrants. In a memo shortly after the inauguration, Acting DHS Secretary Benjamine Huffman said the amount of hours being spent in the office throughout the agency was “unacceptable.” He cited how 28.9 percent of total hours worked by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, 24.4 percent of hours worked by U.S. Coast Guard personnel and 39.7 percent of hours for the Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency were done in the office, according to an internal memo seen by ABC News. open image in gallery President Donald Trump has ordered federal workers to return to the office - and the Department of Homeland Security didn’t waste any time Workers would have to provide adequate documentation justifying the reasons to continue remote working. Huffman wrote in the memo: "Reasons might include lack of adequate office space, physical inability of the employee or a legal impediment.” The decision to call workers back comes in tandem with Trump’s order that federal workers should return to work and that he would crack down on immigration by declaring a national emergency at the borders and instigating mass deportations in U.S. cities.