Live Updates: Trump Keeps Up Breakneck Pace of Executive Orders

Through Cantor and his other firms, Mr. Lutnick has acquired executive positions and holdings in a stunning array of companies. Financial disclosures filed by Mr. Lutnick last week showed that he holds or previously held executive positions in more than 800 companies, and had at least $800 million in assets.

For President Trump and his supporters, Mr. Lutnick’s wealth and business success are a strong qualification for the role of Commerce Secretary. Over the past year, Mr. Lutnick became a central economic adviser to Mr. Trump and helped to lead his transition team.

But Democrats view Mr. Lutnick’s financial ties with more skepticism, saying they could raise questions about his ability to put the interests of the American people ahead of those of himself and former business partners.

In a letter addressed to Mr. Lutnick Monday, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, criticized Cantor Fitzgerald’s investments into a cryptocurrency company called Tether. She called Tether “a known facilitator of criminal activity that has been described as ‘outlaws’ favorite cryptocurrency,’” saying that the tool had financed Mexican drug cartels, terrorist groups and the North Korean nuclear weapons program.

The connections with tether “raise significant questions about your own personal judgment and the conflicts of interest that you will have if you are confirmed as Commerce Secretary,” Ms. Warren wrote to Mr. Lutnick.

As the head of the Commerce Department, Mr. Lutnick would be in charge of many government functions that have enormous sway over the business sector. The Commerce Department is in charge of promoting business interests abroad, restricting the technology sector to protect national security, and delivering government subsidies to the semiconductor and broadband industries, among other functions.

Mr. Trump has also said that Mr. Lutnick would lead the administration’s trade policy more broadly, including overseeing the United States Trade Representative, a small agency that negotiates trade deals and reports directly to the president.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that Mr. Lutnick also has financial interests in the mining industry in Greenland, through Cantor Fitzgerald. Cantor has invested in a company called Critical Metals Corp, which has proposed beginning to mine metals and minerals in Greenland as soon as 2026.

Mr. Trump has repeatedly proposed purchasing Greenland, which is an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Demark. The governments of both Denmark and Greenland say the territory is not for sale.

Here is a look at the plan and its possible implications:

What is the plan?

An email sent to employees on Tuesday by the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the federal civilian work force, was titled “Fork in the Road.” It laid out a program for deferred resignations, under which employees of federal agencies are given the option to resign and continue being paid until Sept. 30.

Anyone who accepts the offer will not be expected to continue working, except in rare cases, and would be paid until the end of September, it said. The last date to accept the offer is Feb. 6.

To do so, employees could simply send an email from their government account with the word “resign.”

The O.P.M. published a question-and-answer page about the plan on its website.

Why is the Trump administration doing this?

Slashing the size of the federal government is a priority for Mr. Trump, as it has been for many Republican presidents. After winning the November election, he said that a smaller and more efficient government, with less bureaucracy, would be a “perfect gift to America” for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026.

Elon Musk, the tech billionaire Mr. Trump tapped to lead what he called the Department of Government Efficiency, on Tuesday shared a post on X, the social media platform he owns, claiming that 5 to 10 percent of the federal work force was expected to quit, saving the government $100 billion. According to the U.S. Treasury, the federal government spent more than $6.7 trillion last year.

Mr. Trump has also described the federal work force as part of a “deep state” that attempted to thwart his priorities during his first term in office. Dramatic action is necessary to combat this group’s power, according to Mr. Trump.

Critics say Mr. Trump’s efforts risk gutting federal agencies whose nonpartisan work offers far-reaching legal, economic and social benefits for Americans.

The payout plan is part of a raft of changes that Mr. Trump envisions for the federal civil service, some of which were detailed in the email sent by the O.P.M. They include ending remote work, changes to performance standards to ensure that all employees are “reliable, loyal, trustworthy,” and the reclassification of some workers to what is known as “at-will status,” in effect making them easier to fire.

Who is eligible?

The O.P.M. said that all federal workers were eligible, with the exception of military personnel, postal workers and employees involved with immigration enforcement or national security. Individual agencies could also exclude specific staff members or positions from the offer, it said.

What happens to those who don’t take the offer?

The letter says that the deferred resignation offer is “completely voluntary,” and that employees who don’t respond to the email will retain their jobs.

But it warns those who choose to remain in their positions that retaining their jobs is not guaranteed.

“At this time, we cannot give you full assurance regarding the certainty of your position or agency but should your position be eliminated you will be treated with dignity and will be afforded the protections in place for such positions,” the letter said.

Is the offer legal?

Much about the plan remained unclear, including whether the administration can legally offer such a sweeping buyout package without budget authorization from Congress. On the Senate floor Tuesday night, Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, urged federal workers not to resign, and warned that the administration was not legally bound to pay them after they stopped working.

“The president has no authority to make that offer. There’s no budget line item to pay people who are not showing up for work,” Mr. Kaine said. “If you accept that offer and resign, he’ll stiff you.”

The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 800,000 federal workers and is the largest union of federal employees, condemned the offer, which its president said would “cause chaos for the Americans who depend on a functioning federal government.”

The White House is already facing mounting legal challenges to the flood of executive orders Mr. Trump has issued in the nine days since he was inaugurated. This week, a federal judge halted a Trump administration order to pause billions of dollars in federal grant and loan programs. Another temporarily blocked Mr. Trump’s order ending birthright citizenship.

‘He’s making a lot more bold decisions.’

Dave Abdallah, 59, from Dearborn Heights, Mich.

Dave Abdallah, a Detroit-area real estate agent who has been keeping an open mind about Mr. Trump, doesn’t see much to quibble with after the first furiously busy week of his second presidency.

“I’ll be honest with you,” he said, “I’m finding him a little bit more palatable this go-round.”

To Mr. Abdallah, the president’s unapologetic style has been impressive enough to overshadow any specific policy concerns.

Mr. Trump seems to know “how to navigate through the system much better than he did before,” Mr. Abdallah said, adding that “he’s making a lot more bold decisions, and I think sometimes in leadership, you’ve got to make bold decisions.”

Mr. Abdallah, a Muslim man who immigrated to the United States as a child, was unhappy with United States’ backing of the war in Gaza and voted for Jill Stein.

Mr. Abdallah didn’t like the move to pardon Jan 6. rioters. He made note of the significant concern in Detroit about immigration raids, and said Mr. Trump was too focused on illegal immigration this soon in his term.

Mr. Trump probably overdid it, Mr. Abdallah said, by signing so many executive orders on his first day of office. “I felt like that was a little excessive,” he said. “I also think it may be setting precedent for how he’s gonna be a take-charge type of guy.”

“I may not agree with everything” Mr. Trump has done so far, Mr. Abdallah said, “but I like the direction he’s taking the United States. I like the fact that America, in his mind, is first.”

— Kurt Streeter

‘I think we’re in for a rough, rocky road till we get there.’

Darlene Alfieri, 55, from Erie, Pa.

Since Sunday afternoon, when Mr. Trump threatened Colombia with steep tariffs if it did not allow military planes carrying deported migrants to land, Darlene Alfieri has been busy with spreadsheets.

Her floral shop business would have taken a big hit with the tariffs, she said — Colombia is one of the main sources of roses in the United States. The threat was dropped when the countries came to an agreement that evening. Nonetheless, Ms. Alfieri has been figuring out how to price in the uncertainty ahead of Valentine’s Day.

The whole episode left her frustrated. She believes reaction from some others in her industry and in the news media was unnecessarily hysterical, since nothing ultimately happened. But it also reinforced concerns she already had about the new administration.

“I don’t think you’re fully thinking about how that affects the American people in their everyday lives,” she said. “Because now I’m not making flowers today, I’m figuring out what I’m gonna do if he goes through with any of this.”

She is convinced that immigration needs to be lawful and orderly, and she saw the reasoning behind many of the administration’s actions last week, including the hard-line approach to Colombia. But her initial worries — about the havoc Mr. Trump might wreak in pursuit of these aims — were hardly put to rest.

“When it all settles down and we all adjust to the changes that it may make in our lives, I think we’ll be OK,” she said, adding, “I think we’re in for a rough, rocky road till we get there.”

— Campbell Robertson

‘I just hope that the overall good for society is better than the negative.’

Perry Hunter, 55, from Sellersburg, Ind.

Perry Hunter, a high school social studies teacher, has spoken to his students about the many changes President Trump is making to the United States, and one change he appreciated was the return of the “Remain in Mexico” immigration policy. An initiative that began in Mr. Trump’s first administration, it requires certain asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while an American immigration judge considers their case.

“I think as people start to pile up at the Mexican border, it will force Mexico to help us with this,” Mr. Hunter said. “And, you know, we can’t do all this on our own.”

During Mr. Trump’s first term, the policy left some migrants in squalid, dangerous conditions at the border, a consequence that very much bothered Mr. Hunter. He said, however, that Mr. Trump’s decision to restart the policy was necessary to “straighten out” the flow of immigrants into the United States because it has led to a strain on the economy. “Sometimes you need tough people to make tough decisions,” he said.

He is closely watching how the president follows through with his promise to deport many undocumented immigrants. And he is bracing himself, concerned that the administration is putting too much pressure on immigration enforcement agents to round up large numbers of people. He’s worried that the United States would deport people who are “easy pickings” — including, to his dismay, children — instead of focusing on immigrants with criminal backgrounds who might be harder to find.

“Unfortunately, a lot of good people are probably going to be hurt,” Mr. Hunter said. “I just hope that the overall good for society is better than the negative.”

— Juliet Macur

‘I feel like there are more important topics to tackle in the United States than what the workplace looks like.’

Isaiah Thompson, 22, from Washington, D.C.

Isaiah Thompson, a student at Howard University, said he almost couldn’t keep up with the blitz of executive actions signed by President Trump. But he watched closely for news about some of the issues he personally cares about, including climate change and racial equity.

After Mr. Trump ordered federal agencies to get rid of programs and policies related to diversity, equity and inclusion, Mr. Thompson said he read the details and wondered, “why do the ideals of diversity and equity and inclusion make people so mad? I feel like there are more important topics to tackle in the United States than what the workplace looks like,” he said.

“I am hoping that Donald Trump’s team is guiding him to make the right decisions for America as a whole, meaning everybody is included,” he added.

He said he was also bothered by the order to pull the United States from the Paris climate agreement. The extreme weather events in January alone — the fires in the Los Angeles area and the snow in the South — reinforced to Mr. Thompson the necessity of strong climate change policies.

But Mr. Thompson did find a bright spot. He said he agreed with Mr. Trump’s call for the release of all government records related to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

— Audra D. S. Burch

In a memo to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Mr. Duffy instructed the agency to re-evaluate fuel economy rules for new cars and trucks through the end of the decade. The order came as one of Mr. Duffy’s first acts as the head of the Department of Transportation.

The Biden fuel economy standards require American automakers’ passenger cars to average 65 miles per gallon by 2031, up from 48.7 miles last year. The average mileage for light trucks, including pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles, would have to reach 45 miles per gallon, up from 35.1 miles per gallon.

Some automakers have criticized the rule as a costly distortion of the market.

“Artificially high fuel economy standards,” the transportation secretary’s memo said, “impose large costs that render many new vehicle models unaffordable for the average American family and small business owner.”

Mr. Duffy, a former Wisconsin representative, was confirmed earlier in the day despite a late wave of opposition from some Democrats upset about the Trump administration’s freeze on federal grants and loans. The final vote was 77 to 22.

In his memo, Mr. Duffy expressed doubts about whether the current fuel economy standards accurately reflect the United States’ abundant oil reserves and refining capabilities. The memo states that these standards may not take into account the vulnerabilities of the U.S. electricity grid or the national security risks of relying on foreign sources for materials, particularly those used in electric vehicle batteries.

Mr. Duffy’s memo directs the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to review all fuel economy standards for vehicles from the 2022 model year onward.

“We have received the request and we are reviewing it,” Mollie Halpern, a spokeswoman for the acting Defense Department inspector general, said of the referral to examine General Milley’s actions as chairman.

The general retired in 2023, and at a ceremony marking the occasion he reminded troops that they took an oath to the Constitution and not to a “a king, or a queen, or to a tyrant or dictator, and we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator.” Senior Pentagon officials late Tuesday sought to cast Mr. Milley as an insubordinate political operator while in the chairman’s job.

“Undermining the chain of command is corrosive to our national security, and restoring accountability is a priority for the Defense Department under President Trump’s leadership,” Joe Kasper, Mr. Hegseth’s chief of staff, said in a statement late Tuesday.

General Milley could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.

Just days before General Milley’s retirement ceremony, Mr. Trump, then still planning a political comeback, suggested that the general had committed treason and should be put to death.

Amid continued threats from Mr. Trump of retribution against his enemies upon returning to office, General Milley received a pre-emptive pardon from President Joseph R. Biden Jr. hours before he left office last week. (In his first week back in the White House, Mr. Trump had the general’s portrait removed from the hallway in the Pentagon outside the chairman’s offices.)

Since General Milley has been pardoned, he cannot be court-martialed. But a finding against him could lead to a decision to reduce his rank, even in retirement.

General Milley and other former Trump administration officials had been assigned government security details because they remained under threat following the U.S. drone strike that killed the powerful Iranian general Qassim Suleimani in early 2020.

Two Republican Senate allies of President Trump urged him on Sunday to rethink his decision to strip security details from the former advisers who have been targeted by Iran, saying the move could chill his current aides from doing their jobs effectively.

Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas and the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, spoke after Mr. Trump abruptly halted government security protection for three officials from his first term who were involved in his Iran policy and have remained under threat.

Fox News earlier reported that Mr. Hegseth was moving to revoke General Milley’s security detail and order the inspector general review.

As the newly sworn-in defense secretary, Mr. Hegseth has been a sharp critic of General Milley.

General Milley’s split with Mr. Trump had its roots in his decision to apologize also for inserting himself into politics when he walked alongside Mr. Trump in 2020, through Lafayette Square, for a photo op after the authorities used tear gas and rubber bullets to clear the area of peaceful protesters. “I should not have been there,” he said later. “My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics.”

Mr. Trump’s supporters have also attacked General Milley over his contacts with his Chinese counterpart during the first Trump administration, assuring them that the United States was not seeking to strike them, or trigger a military crisis.

General Milley, 66, was promoted to chairman of the Joint Chiefs by Mr. Trump in 2019. At the time, the president was impressed with his military record and his bearing. But he quickly soured on him. A book published by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig, “I Alone Can Fix It,” reported that General Milley was worried that President Trump might attempt to stage a coup after he lost the 2020 election. He made efforts to ensure a peaceful transfer of power, and issued a statement condemning the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.

“The rapid escalation of these assaults on the trans community, in just over a week of his presidency, paints a grim picture of what lies ahead,” Erin Reed, a transgender activist and journalist, wrote in a Substack post.

In his first gender-related order, Mr. Trump instructed government agencies to ensure that federally funded institutions recognize people as girls, boys, men or women based solely on their “immutable biological classification.” It included a specific provision requiring the Bureau of Prisons to house transgender women in prisons designated for men and to stop providing prisoners with medical treatments related to gender transitions.

On Monday, Mr. Trump directed the Pentagon to re-evaluate whether transgender troops should be permitted to serve. And on Tuesday evening, he issued an order taking steps to end gender-transition medical treatments for anyone under 19, directing agencies to curtail puberty-suppressing medication, hormone therapy and surgeries.

Court challenges of the first two orders are already underway, and trans advocates said on Tuesday evening that they would challenge the order on medical treatment as well.

“We will not allow this dangerous, sweeping and unconstitutional order to stand,” said Chase Strangio, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union who was the first openly trans lawyer to appear before the Supreme Court last year in a case about medical treatments for minors.

Transgender people account for less than 1 percent of the adult population in the United States, according to an estimate from the Williams Institute at U.C.L.A., which performs research on the L.G.B.T.Q. population. Polling shows that Americans have mixed views on the inclusion of transgender girls and women in sports and whether minors should be allowed to obtain medical treatment to transition.

On social media, conservative activists struck a celebratory tone.

“Dear trans activists,” the account called Libs of TikTok posted on X. “You lost. We won.”

In interviews and on social media in recent days, transgender advocates have responded in strong terms. Many suggested that the language of the order aimed at limiting transgender people from military service reflected anti-trans bigotry rather than substantive policy concerns.

“Adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life,” the executive order reads.

Nicolas Talbott, 31, of Akron, Ohio, a transgender second lieutenant in the U.S. Army who is a plaintiff in a legal challenge to the order, said that “this time not only are they attacking our ability to do our jobs, now they’re trying to attack our character and the core of our being.”

The language appeared to surprise even some conservative commentators.

“Trump just signed an Executive Order saying transgender individuals are too mentally ill to be soldiers, and too lacking in honor and discipline in their personal lives,” Richard Hanania, a conservative writer and podcaster, wrote in a post on X. “Really.”

Brianna Wu, a transgender woman and a Democratic strategist who has criticized some aspects of the trans rights movement, such as the inclusion of trans women in women’s sports, said the series of orders would push trans people out of public life.

“If you’re asking me if I’m a natal male, I have no issue about admitting biology,” Ms. Wu said in an interview. “The question is not, ‘Are trans women biological men?’ The question is, ‘Do trans women deserve dignity as your fellow citizens?’

“It’s disheartening to see the Trump administration come down so hard on the other side.”

The most recent order set as official policy that the federal government not “fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another.”

It directed the Department of Health and Human Services to review the terms of insurance coverage under Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act to end some gender-affirming care. It also gave the department 90 days to release a new set of best practices, meant to revise guidance from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, which was written to set standards for transgender medical care, and which the order called “junk science.”

It tasked agencies providing federal research or education grants to medical institutions, including medical schools and hospitals, with ensuring that those institutions were not carrying out any gender-related procedures.

And it directed the Federal Employees Health Benefits and Postal Service Health Benefits programs to exclude similar types of coverage starting in 2026.

Civil rights groups have issued increasingly dire statements criticizing the administration for a stance they say widely demonizes and marginalizes transgender people.

“Access to gender-affirming care enables trans youth to live authentically and is often life-saving,” Fatima Goss Graves, the president of the National Women’s Law Center, said in a statement. “The Trump administration’s continued assault on the rights and dignity of trans people is deplorable.”

Demand for gender-affirming medications and hormone therapy among transgender youth has not been studied extensively, but only a small fraction of minors who identify as transgender currently receive gender-transition treatments, according to researchers at the Williams Institute at the U.C.L.A. School of Law, which conducts demographic studies about the L.G.B.T.Q. population.

The language from the White House surrounding gender-affirming medical treatments and their effects on the body has grown increasingly severe and disdainful since Mr. Trump took office.

On his first day, Mr. Trump signed an order describing transgender identity as an “ideology” from which women required institutional protection and restricted single-sex spaces.

The order directing the Pentagon to evaluate whether transgender troops could serve in the military cast aspersions on the mental and physical health of anyone who has experienced gender dysphoria or has had a gender-related medical procedure. On Tuesday, civil rights groups filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging any ban on transgender service members as unconstitutional.

The order on care for minors, which referred to procedures as “chemical and surgical mutilation,” predicted that “countless children” who received gender-affirming procedures would soon regret the “horrifying tragedy that they will never be able to conceive children of their own or nurture their children through breastfeeding.”

Gender-affirming surgeries on minors are exceedingly rare in the United States, a Harvard Chan School of Public Health Study found last year. The study’s lead author, Dannie Dai, said legislation banning gender-affirming care among youth “is not about protecting children, but is rooted in bias and stigma” and “seeks to address a perceived problem that does not actually exist.”

More than two-dozen states have passed some form of restriction on gender-affirming medical procedures, according to data compiled by the Human Rights Campaign. And many states already have laws on their books prohibiting public funds from covering gender-transition treatments for state employees and Medicaid recipients.

While Mr. Trump campaigned on promises to do away with some programs supporting transgender people, he tended to home in on specific cases, such as U.S. prisons offering gender-affirming care to prisoners — something many prisons did, as required by federal law, during Mr. Trump’s first term.

But in excluding transgender people from certain jobs and facilities, and officially recognizing only two genders — male and female — the Trump administration has gone much further in recent days by essentially placing the federal government in opposition to a wide variety of gender-related therapies and to anyone who seeks them. And it has justified those moves with progressively dark — and factually disputed — descriptions of what those procedures entail.

Amy Harmon contributed reporting.

The email, with the subject line “Fork in the Road,” said that the majority of federal agencies would probably be downsized and that a substantial number of employees would be furloughed or reclassified to “at-will status” — essentially making them easier to fire. Most people who have been working remotely will be required to work from their office five days a week, the email said, and some physical offices will be consolidated, causing some people to be relocated.

The message also said that “enhanced standards of conduct” would be applied to ensure that workers were “reliable, loyal, trustworthy” and warned that “at this time, we cannot give you full assurance regarding the certainty of your position or agency.”

The email amounted to a frontal assault on the federal bureaucracy, which Mr. Trump has long derided as the “deep state” and has sought to bend to his will. In making the move, the president was testing the limits of his power, trying to push past the federal law that governs payouts and rules that have long protected the civil service from political interference and pressure.

The move also risked gutting the staffs of a wide array of federal agencies that Americans depend on, though federal unions immediately condemned the offer, and many federal employees viewed it as a trick.

The message echoed an email that the billionaire Elon Musk, a constant companion to Mr. Trump in recent months, sent to Twitter employees after buying the social media platform in late 2022. Mr. Musk’s email shared the same subject line and offered employees three months of severance.

Mr. Musk, who is leading the Trump administration’s cost-cutting effort known as the Department of Government Efficiency, does not officially work at the Office of Personnel Management. But the agency has hired several of Mr. Musk’s allies in recent weeks, including Amanda Scales, who until this month worked at Mr. Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, and is now the O.P.M.’s chief of staff.

In a post on X on Tuesday, Mr. Musk’s America PAC said the move to offer employees paid administrative leave for eight months could lead to billions of dollars in savings. Mr. Musk recirculated the post on his social media platform.

Employees who accept the offer will “promptly have their duties reassigned or eliminated,” according to a guidance memo published by the O.P.M. on Tuesday. Workers will then be placed on paid administrative leave until the end of September, or an earlier resignation date of their choosing.

Employees who resign will not be expected to work, except in rare cases determined by agencies, according to a question-and-answer page on O.P.M.’s website. Agency heads can require some employees to continue working for some time before they are placed on leave.

It is unclear what authority the Trump administration has to offer paid administrative leave to effectively the entire federal civilian work force. Under the law, no employee can be on administrative leave for more than 10 days in a year — let alone more than seven months.

Under the Homeland Security Act, agencies that are downsizing or reorganizing can offer federal workers $25,000 in exchange for their resignation, known as a Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment. In many cases, though, the payments proposed in the O.P.M.’s email Tuesday would far exceed that sum.

Other actions mentioned in the email to federal employees could run afoul of civil service laws, as well as union contracts. Anticipating those limits, the O.P.M. said in the email that the effort to cull the federal work force would be pursued “to the extent permitted under relevant collective-bargaining agreements.”

A spokesperson for the Office of Personnel Management said some workers would be exempt from the offer, including military personnel, Postal Service workers, immigration officials and certain national security officials. Agencies can also carve out exceptions for specific positions.

Still, almost every facet of the government could be significantly affected by mass resignations, and a culling of the federal work force would have wide-reaching impacts on the lives of many Americans.

Regular activities like traveling, renewing passports or filing for a tax return could be delayed or disrupted. The operation of national parks and museums, and the administration of benefits like Social Security, Medicare, veterans’ care and food stamps could also be affected. Regulators and inspectors for food, water, drugs and workplace safety could also leave the government.

Among the government employees who could turn in their resignations are skilled researchers and doctors; environmental, nuclear and rocket scientists; and meteorologists at the National Weather Service. Depending on how the Trump administration defines “national security,” officers at law enforcement agencies like the F.B.I. and Drug Enforcement Administration may also resign.

The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union of federal employees, representing over 800,000 workers, quickly condemned the move.

“There are more Americans than ever who rely on government services,” said Everett Kelley, the president of the union. “Purging the federal government of dedicated career civil servants will have vast, unintended consequences that will cause chaos for the Americans who depend on a functioning federal government.”

Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia — a state that hosts a large chunk of the federal work force — denounced the offer, and suggested that the offer of pay was a trick.

“If you accept that offer and resign, he’ll stiff you.” Mr. Kaine, a Democrat, said in a floor speech on Tuesday, referring to Mr. Trump’s past refusals to pay workers.

Mr. Kaine added of Mr. Trump, “He doesn’t have any authority to do this. Do not be fooled by this guy.”

No military personnel are to be involved in processing and detaining “criminal aliens within the U.S.,” the Northern Command said in a statement. But deportation officers will benefit from the sprawling base’s infrastructure and overall security.

The immigration service requested and received “a temporary operations center, staging area, and a temporary holding location for the receiving, holding, and processing of illegal aliens,” according to the Northern Command.

It was not immediately clear how many migrants the immigration service plans to process or hold at the military base.

Responsibility for operating the detention facility at the base falls to senior immigration service leaders, special agents and analysts, as well as personnel from other parts of the Department of Homeland as well as other federal law enforcement agencies, the Northern Command said.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Monday, his first full official day on the job, that “whatever is needed at the border will be provided.” He did not rule out Mr. Trump invoking the Insurrection Act, a law more than 200 years old, to allow the use of the armed forces for law enforcement duty, which is otherwise barred.

About 1,600 Marines and Army soldiers have arrived near the Mexican border in California and Texas in the past week, joining 2,500 Army reservists called to active duty who were already there. More troops are expected to deploy to the border in the coming days, Pentagon officials say.

Last week the National Gallery of Art in Washington, which recently mounted a rebranding campaign that focused on diversity, equity and inclusion, announced that it was closing its office of belonging and inclusion.

Now a similar effort is underway at the Smithsonian, one of the largest cultural institutions in the United States. The organization includes 21 museums across the country and receives nearly two-thirds of its $1 billion budget from the federal government.

A museum official said that while the museum was closing its Office of Diversity, it would be retaining its “efforts at visitor accessibility as it serves a critical function.”

Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III said that the diversity office’s closure would be a “first step” to address the new federal policy, according to an email obtained by The Washington Post, which first reported the changes.

The Smithsonian is a hybrid institution that includes both private and federal employees. The organization’s hiring page currently includes about 40 jobs that executives were looking to fill at different museums around the country, including a conservator position at the National Air and Space Museum and a supervisory veterinary medical officer at the National Zoological Park.