Longtime federal workers say they have become pawns in a battle for political control, that their DEI work is misunderstood and that they are under surveillance.

Pennsylvania has some 66,000 federal workers. Many work in Veterans Affairs, Defense, and the Treasury. For tens of thousands of federal workers in the Philadelphia region, President Donald Trump’s executive orders this week could change how they do their jobs.

President Donald Trump targeted federal workers in an opening act aimed at exerting political control over a sprawling bureaucracy — putting federal diversity, equity and inclusion employees on leave, banning remote work and stripping employment protections from civil servants.