By FARNOUSH AMIRI and MATTHEW LEE

WASHINGTON (AP) — One employee coordinated intelligence activities. Another worked to leverage U.S. energy interests abroad. And a third was an expert on strategic competition with China.

They are just some of the more than 1,300 State Department employees fired last week, eliminating hundreds of years of institutional knowledge and experience.

The move has stunned America’s diplomatic workforce, not only as their careers abruptly end but as they wonder who — if anyone — will fill in on what they call critical work to keep the U.S. safe and competitive on the world stage.

Many of the positions and offices “abolished” Friday under Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s dramatic reorganization plan overlap with priorities President Donald Trump has laid out for his second term, such as combating visa fraud and countering China. Other cuts could have wide impact on everyday life, including processing Americans’ passport applications.

Trump administration officials have defended the mass dismissals, saying they are overdue and necessary to make the department leaner and more efficient.

Where the State Department cuts are hitting

Among the employees laid off are more than 100 people who worked in the Bureau of Consular Affairs, which is self-funded from passport and visa fees.

That includes half of a team that investigated passport fraud and 23 people who oversaw contracts to provide American citizen services, including processing passport applications, in the U.S. and abroad, according to a list compiled by current and former foreign service officers and sent to Congress this week.

Others fired included experts responsible for dealing with visa fraud and money laundering in Russia and Eastern Europe as well as transnational criminal organizations and migrant worker visa fraud in Mexico and Central America.

A small team that had worked on multilateral engagements in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, including supporting Rubio’s trip to Malaysia last week, also were fired as Rubio was flying back to Washington from Kuala Lumpur, according to the list.

A handful of employees said their small office was eliminated even though it was doing work on immigration that the administration had deemed a priority. They thought their jobs were safe, and several were on vacation when the notices started rolling in.

“It came out of the blue, and there’s no one left to do what we were doing,” said one of the laid-off employees, who has more than 30 years of experience.

Fired employees speak out about their work

In interviews with The Associated Press, more than half a dozen employees who got notice to clear out their desks described their work as crucial. For some, the government spent tens of thousands of dollars investing in their language skills, providing training or moving them and their families from one overseas posting to another.

They spoke on the condition of anonymity, fearing reprisal from the agency where they remain on the payroll until September.

“The American people aren’t getting all of the facts about what the department has done,” said a civil service officer working in intelligence who was fired last week.

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The person said the intelligence work their team had been doing has now been transferred to an office that doesn’t have the capacity to handle the sensitive material and coordination required.

One senior official, who was fired after 26 years in the foreign service, said their office was working to maintain U.S. energy dominance abroad. Rubio testified at his confirmation hearing earlier this year that energy would be “a centerpiece of our foreign policy.”

“The fact that they got rid of all the energy experts who would promote oil and gas sales overseas clearly undermines everything that they’re saying,” the official said.

At least seven intelligence analysts who specialized in Russia and Ukraine issues, as well as five fluent Chinese speakers, also were let go, according to two of the employees.

A staffer focused on strategic competition with China said the decision to lay off staff who had institutional and cultural knowledge of China and spoke the language could leave the U.S. exposed.

He added that Rubio had recently labeled the country as “the most significant long-term risk to the United States.”

The State Department says it needs to be nimble

Although the dismissals were less severe than many feared, they’re a major concern for staffers being tasked with additional duties to make up for losses in key areas like intelligence and research, consular affairs, diplomatic security, energy, and international and educational organizations.

Before a panel of deeply skeptical Democratic lawmakers, Michael Rigas, the State Department official who sent employees the layoff notices, tried Wednesday to allay concerns that the cuts would have a devastating impact on U.S. diplomacy.

He denied allegations that the layoffs were conducted in a haphazard and irresponsible manner to the detriment of national security.

Rigas, deputy secretary of state for management, made the case to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the department with more than 76,000 employees worldwide had grown exponentially and that a massive reorganization was needed to keep it relevant and nimble to respond to foreign crises and policy challenges.

The department “became large and began to lose its way,” becoming “ineffectual bureaucratically,” spokesperson Tammy Bruce told reporters Wednesday. She added that it wasn’t “the fault of the people who were in those seats, but the structure itself.”

Rigas said those laid off Friday are on administrative leave — foreign service officers for 120 days, and civil servants for 20 days — and they could have the opportunity to apply for other positions once a government-wide hiring freeze is lifted.

Booker confronts Trump administration official

Some senators were not buying Rigas’ argument, and sharp disagreements erupted into a shouting match after New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker accused Rigas of lying to lawmakers this week over the extent of the staff reductions.

Booker was visibly angry as he wielded a list of what he said were misstatements, half-truths or lies in Rigas’ testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee a day earlier about the firings.

“I don’t trust you, Mr. Rigas,” Booker said. “Your statements lack veracity.”

“This is outrageous,” Rigas replied as he tried to respond over multiple interruptions from Booker.

Booker’s list resembled the one compiled by current and former foreign service officers identifying certain eliminated positions that Rigas said had been largely spared.

“Sir, you have not been truthful,” Booker said. “I have watched you lie to this committee, I have watched you lie to the House committee.”

Amiri reported from New York.

By VALERIE GONZALEZ and ELLIOT SPAGAT

McALLEN, Texas (AP) — In 2006, top U.S. Border Patrol officials were asked how long it would take to hire 6,000 agents, a roughly 50% increase at the time. Michael Fisher, then deputy chief in San Diego, says the officials concluded they would need five years.

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“You have 2 1/2 years,” Fisher recalls being told.

With Immigration and Customs Enforcement now preparing to add 10,000 employees within five years to assist with President Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts, the Border Patrol’s torrid expansion in the early 2000s serves as a cautionary tale. Hiring and training standards were changed and arrests for employee misconduct rose. Pressure to turbo-charge growth can also lead to attrition.

“If they don’t uphold pretty rigorous standards and background checks, you can end up hiring the wrong people, and then you pay a huge price in how the public perceives them,” said Gil Kerlikowske, who was commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, the Border Patrol’s parent agency, from 2014 to 2017.

ICE, the main agency responsible for arresting and deporting people within the U.S., is set to get $76.5 billion, nearly 10 times its annual budget, under a bill Trump signed on July 4. Most of that money is for detention, but some is for hiring and other uses. The White House says ICE will grow from 20,000 employees to about 30,000.

“To do it today is an effort that needs to start years ago,” said Matthew Hudak, former Border Patrol deputy chief. “The funding is there, but it is nearly impossible to bring in that many people that quickly because you hit challenges.”

Sponsoring a NASCAR race car and bull riding contests

The Border Patrol nearly doubled its workforce from 11,264 agents in October 2005 to 21,444 agents six years later.

To recruit officers, the agency sponsored a NASCAR race car and bull riding contests. It aired ads during Dallas Cowboys football games. It advertised at military bases. Billboards and job fairs hundreds of miles from the border promised fulfilling careers, resulting in thousands of applications a week.

Federal agents ride on horseback at MacArthur Park, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Los Angeles. Their uniforms read “Police U.S. Border Patrol,” and “HSI,” which stands for Homeland Security Investigations. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

The agency also loosened some hiring guidelines and training requirements. The age limit for new hires was raised to 40 years old from 37. Spanish language training was cut by up to 30 days, some training was moved online and other instruction was shifted to the field to lessen time at a training academy that the agency opened in Artesia, New Mexico, during the hiring surge, according to a Government Accountability Office report.

Arrests for illegal crossings fell to their lowest levels in decades — a sign for some that the strategy succeeded.

But other measurements were more troubling.

In 2008, the Border Patrol struggled to keep new agents, with about 20% failing to graduate from the academy and more leaving after returning to their stations.

Arrests of CBP employees for misconduct increased to 336 in the 2012 fiscal year from 190 seven years earlier. The agency saw a spate of high-profile corruption cases, including agents accused of smuggling people across the border or working with drug cartels to bring illegal drugs into the U.S.

FILE – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers wait to detain a person, Jan. 27, 2025, in Silver Spring, Md. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

The polygraph pass rate for new applicants tumbled to 33% in 2012 from 58% four years earlier. While the accuracy of the tests came under scrutiny, one applicant admitted that his brother-in-law, a known Mexican drug smuggler, asked him to use his employment to facilitate cocaine trafficking. Another admitted to using marijuana 9,000 times, including the night before the exam.

A 2015 Homeland Security report found that the number of investigators assigned to internal wrongdoing was “woefully inadequate” for the agency’s growth.

“Any time you have massive political pressure to beef up overnight, it never turns out well,” said T.J. Bonner, the former president of the Border Patrol agents union who retired in 2011. “Too many corners have to be cut. Then when things go wrong. the fingers get pointed.”

Stiff competition for qualified applicants

ICE and Homeland Security did not respond to questions about lessons that the Border Patrol’s hiring spree or detailed plans for hiring at ICE.

“The unprecedented funding for ICE will enable my hard-working officers and agents to continue making America safe again by identifying, arresting and removing criminal aliens from our communities,” Todd Lyons, the acting ICE director, said after Trump signed the bill.

Federal agents ride on and armored vehicle at MacArthur Park Monday, July 7, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Critics say the administration’s policy to target anyone in the country illegally, not just those with criminal records, could lead to abuses. Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff and lead architect of his immigration policies, had set an aggressive target of at least 3,000 arrests a day even before any additional hiring.

“When there are no priorities, everybody’s a priority,” said Nayna Gupta, policy director of the American Immigration Council. “You’re very likely to see confusion, delay, wrongful arrest, more mistakes when law enforcement agencies, especially large ones, don’t have clear direction and guidance for prioritization.”

Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, said competition for qualified law enforcement is tough, with departments now offering signing bonuses of $10,000 to $100,000.

Border Patrol staffing has yet to return to its peaks of the early 2010s. Trump tried to increase staffing in his first term. A contract with consulting firm Accenture PLC cost $13.6 million to set up in 2018 and resulted in only two hires over 10 months.

A Border Patrol agent looks on as a family from Colombia is detained and escorted to a bus by federal agents following an appearance at immigration court Monday, July 14, 2025, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Trump’s bill allocates about $170 billion for border and immigration enforcement, with $4.1 billion for CBP hiring that includes 3,000 more Border Patrol agents. It comes at a time of historically low crossings after they reached a record high in December 2023.

Spagat reported from San Diego.

By ALEX VEIGA, AP Business Writer

The average rate on a 30-year U.S. mortgage rose for the second week in a row, another setback for the U.S. housing market, which is mired in a sales slump as affordability constraints shut out prospective homebuyers.

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The long-term rate ticked up to 6.75% from 6.72% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. A year ago, the rate averaged 6.77%.

Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, popular with homeowners refinancing their home loans, also rose. The average rate increased to 5.92% from 5.86% last week. A year ago, it was 6.05%, Freddie Mac said.

When mortgage rates rise they can add hundreds of dollars a month in costs for borrowers and reduce their purchasing power. That’s helped keep the U.S. housing market in a sales slump that dates back to 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from the rock-bottom lows they reached during the pandemic.

Last year, sales of previously occupied U.S. homes sank to their lowest level in nearly 30 years. They’ve remained sluggish so far this year, as many prospective homebuyers have been discouraged by elevated mortgage rates and home prices that have continued to climb, albeit more slowly.

Mortgage rates are influenced by several factors, from the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy decisions to bond market investors’ expectations for the economy and inflation.

The main barometer is the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans. The yield was at 4.45% at midday Thursday, down from 4.46% late Wednesday.

Yields have largely moved higher this month as traders bet that a better-than-expected June jobs report could keep the Fed on hold when it comes to interest rates.

Bond investors briefly drove longer-term yields higher Wednesday, after President Donald Trump said he had discussed the “concept” of firing the chair of the Federal Reserve but was unlikely to do so.

The president has been calling for Powell to cut interest rates. A less independent Fed could mean lower short-term rates, but it could have the opposite effect on the longer-term bond yields that influence the rates on home loans.

The average rate on a 30-year mortgage has remained relatively close to its high so far this year of just above 7%, set in mid-January. The 30-year rate’s low point this year was in early April when it briefly dipped to 6.62%.

The rise in mortgage rates appears to have discouraged some home shoppers. Mortgage applications fell 10% last week from a week earlier as higher rates and economic uncertainty dampened demand, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Economists generally expect mortgage rates to stay relatively stable in the coming months, with forecasts calling for the average rate on a 30-year mortgage to remain in a range between 6% and 7% this year.

By MATTHEW PERRONE, AP Health Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration is allowing vaping brand Juul to keep its e-cigarettes on the market, providing relief to a company that has struggled for years after being widely blamed for sparking the teen vaping trend.

FDA regulators said Thursday that studies from Juul show its e-cigarettes are less harmful for adult smokers, who can benefit from switching completely to vaping.

The FDA decision applies to both tobacco- and menthol-flavored versions of the reusable product, which works with nicotine-filled cartridges sold in two different strengths. Juul previously discontinued several fruit and candy flavors that helped drive its popularity but were favored by teens.

Juul will be one of only two U.S. companies authorized to sell menthol-flavored vapes, which many adults prefer to tobacco flavor.

“This is an important milestone for the company and I think we made a scientifically sound case for the role that menthol can play in e-vapor,” Juul CEO K.C. Crosthwaite told The Associated Press.

Parents, politicians and antitobacco groups are certain to oppose FDA’s decision. They have argued for years that Juul should be permanently banned from selling its products due to its role in triggering a yearslong spike in underage vaping

Juul was once valued at over $13 billion and its small, sleek e-cigarettes revolutionized the image and technology of the vaping industry. But the company has since been forced to slash hundreds of jobs and pay billions to settle lawsuits over its role in the rise of youth vaping.

The FDA had ordered the company to remove its products from the market in June 2022. But then the agency abruptly reversed course and agreed to reopen its scientific review of Juul’s application after the company pushed back in court.

Juul said that regulators had overlooked thousands of pages of scientific data critical to its submission.

Thursday’s announcement is not an approval or endorsement, and the FDA reiterated that people who do not smoke should not use Juul or any other e-cigarettes. The FDA determination indicates that smokers who switch completely to Juul can reduce their exposure to deadly carcinogens and other chemicals found in traditional cigarettes.

The FDA decision applies to Juul’s original product, which is now roughly a decade old. Crosthwaite said the company hopes to win authorization for its next-generation device and is also considering applying to FDA for more flavors.

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In recent years, the FDA has authorized a handful of e-cigarettes to help adult smokers cut back on traditional cigarettes, while rejecting more than a million other vaping products that failed to meet agency standards. Juul’s main competitors, Vuse and Njoy, each previously received FDA permission to remain on the market.

To meet FDA requirements, companies must show that their e-cigarettes benefit public health. In practice, that means proving that adult smokers who use them are likely to quit or reduce their smoking, while teens are unlikely to get hooked on them.

The brainchild of two Stanford University students, Juul launched in 2015 and within two years rocketed to the top of the vaping market.

Juul quickly outpaced earlier brands with its high-nicotine, fruity-flavored vape cartridges, sold in mango, mint and creme brulé. The company’s small, discrete devices provided a more potent, user-friendly alternative to older, bulkier devices.

But the company’s rise was fueled by underage use, and e-cigarettes quickly became ubiquitous in U.S. high schools and middle schools. In 2019, the company was pressured into halting all advertising and eliminating most of its flavors, leaving only tobacco and menthol-flavored cartridges for its device.

By then the company was already the target of multiple investigations and lawsuits by Congress, state and local officials and class action attorneys.

In 2022, the company paid $1.7 billion to settle thousands of lawsuits brought by families of Juul users, school districts, city governments and Native American tribes. The company has separately agreed to pay $1.1 billion to settle lawsuits with most U.S. states.

Juul is no longer the top-selling e-cigarette brand and now trails Vuse, which is sold by Reynolds American.

Teens have also shifted away from the brand amid a wider drop in vaping, according to the latest federal survey. The FDA reported last year that teen vaping dropped to a 10-year low, after stepped up enforcement against unauthorized brands imported from China, such as Elf Bar.

Unlike Juul, disposable e-cigarettes like Elf Bar still come in fruit and candy flavors, despite efforts by regulators to block their use.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.