The treasury union represents about 200 active members in Minnesota spread across six offices, most of them Internal Revenue Service employees and border patrol agents.

Already, at the Minnesota-Canada border, the patrol workers are stressed over persistent staffing shortages. Now, some wonder how a hiring freeze and possible cutbacks will hit them at the same time they are ordered to step up immigration enforcement, said Timothy Ronholm, president of the treasury union’s Chapter 29 Minnesota local.

“I’m already trying to get funding and staffing increases up there on the north border between U.S. and Canada,” said Ronholm, noting there have been persistent staffing shortages there.

Other executive orders cancel diversity programs, say the federal government will not recognize people’s preferred genders if they differ from birth, and halt federal contract compliance programs. Other orders paused federal payments on energy projects and outlawed external communications from federal health departments until a Trump appointee could review them.

The AFGE union also went after the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a task force headed by billionaire CEO Elon Musk to make recommendations on how to cut government spending.

AFGE workers in Minnesota work in agencies including the Veterans Administration, Social Security, U.S. Department of Agriculture, border patrol and immigration services, said AFGE Midwest spokesman Ruark Hotopp.