
Cracks in the facade? Memorial Day a test for Trump's National Park Service
Cracks in the facade? Memorial Day a test for Trump's National Park Service
Show Caption
Hide Caption
Hidden gems, scenic stays and parks worth the trip
With more people hitting the road this summer, national parks are expected to see record crowds. But if you're looking to escape the congestion, our Ali Reid has uncovered some hidden gems worth exploring.
Americans kicking off summer at national parks and U.S. Forest Service trailheads this Memorial Day weekend will find clean restrooms, well-staffed visitor centers and tidy trails.
But longtime public lands advocates say it's only a matter of time before campers, hikers and anglers start seeing cracks in what they believe is a wafer-thin facade, as rangers scramble to keep up following widespread layoffs, retirements and buyouts. Public lands advocates worry the Trump administration will use the subsequent problems as justification for closing, selling or transferring parks and land to private operators.
When Trump took office, park service staffing was already 20% lower than it was in 2010, even though 2024 was the busiest year for park visitation in history, with 332 million visitors last year.
"It's almost like death by 1,000 cuts is where this is going to lead," said Josh Hicks, The Wilderness Society's conservation campaigns director. "They may be trying to put on the facade that everything is going swimmingly but it's really not, and there will be a slow degradation of our public lands."
Park workers compared to 'a rubber band that's pretty stretched thin'
The National Park Service manages more than 84 million acres of land, from the tiny Gateway Arch National Park in St. Louis, Missouri, to the sprawling 13.2 million-acre Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve in Alaska. The Forest Service manages another 193 million acres ‒ bigger than the whole of Texas.
Since taking office, Trump and his administration have fired thousands of park service and Forest Service employees, implemented a hiring freeze and delayed the planned hiring of seasonal workers critical to staffing visitor centers, maintaining trails and cleaning toilets. But at the same time, Interior Department Secretary Doug Burgum has ordered park managers to keep open campgrounds, visitor centers and toilets.
The National Park Service did not respond to a request from USA TODAY to explain summer staffing and maintenance plans. The Interior Department declined to comment on staffing reductions.
At Yellowstone National Park, where the wildlife season is well underway, guide service owner Cara McGary said toilets remain clean and well-stocked. McGary, a former park ranger whose partner is a ranger in Alaska, runs In Our Nature Guiding Services. In her 800-person hometown of Gardiner, Montana, almost everyone has a connection to Yellowstone, she said, from park rangers and maintenance workers to schoolteachers who've seen their students vanish after Trump fired their parents.
McGary said bookings for her guide services have been up ‒ she suspects some customers are trying to visit before any real Trump-related cuts take effect. Other public lands advocates say bookings have been slower than usual, in part because of Trump's trade war with Canada.
"I think it's going to be OK if we can make it through the sprint of spring, but what happens in September?" McGary asked. "We have a legacy of people in the federal government giving more than 100%. They are already a rubber band that's pretty stretched thin. And we're about to push them further."
McGary said she's facing decisions about how to handle bathroom breaks if Yellowstone can't keep its toilets clean as she tours clients through the park, seeking wolves, bears and other wildlife. During the 2018-2019 federal government shutdown, McGary and other park supporters held "guerilla" toilet cleanings so things stayed tolerable, but she worries the situation will be worse this summer.
"I don't know how screwed we are. But I think there's going to be consequences," she said. "It sucks. There is no win in this."
Don't forget to bring your own water
Just a few miles from one of the wealthiest ZIP codes in the country, the Maroon Bells Scenic Area sits nestled amidst towering mountains, with aspen trees coating the hillsides and quiet lakes reflecting the sun overhead.
But while the five-star hotels of Aspen, including the Little Nell and the Hotel Jerome, offer almost every conceivable amenity, Maroon Bells visitors this year will have to bring their own water from town 26 miles away.
Normally, U.S. Forest Service employees make sure that the more than 300,000 annual visitors have access to both toilets and drinking water when they arrive at the Maroon Bells trailhead.
"Man, the richest country in the world ought to be fund at a basic level the public lands everyone has access to," said Scott Fitzwilliams, who oversaw the area as supervisor of the White River National Forest. Fitzwilliams quit his job in February as the Trump administration began layoffs and job cuts across the Forest Service.
The White River forest is the nation's busiest, home to ski areas including Aspen, Vail and Beaver Creek, along with hundreds of miles of hiking and mountain bike trails, dozens of campgrounds and innumerable sparkling lakes for fishing.
Fitzwilliams said he expects that many pit toilets in the forest will only be pumped out once this summer down from as much as four times. He said his successors had also planned to bring in student-workers this summer to help with maintenance and trail-clearing, but approval from Elon Musk's DOGE teams came too late to make it work this year.
"It's going to be mid-to late-summer before people begin to see it, but it's going to be pretty profound," he predicted. "We may get one (toilet) pump for the year. It's going to get ugly."
Like other public lands experts, Fitzwilliams said he's also worried what will happen during wildfire season. Typically, National Incident Management Teams are made up of public lands workers across the country ‒ people who have other day jobs but get seconded to the fire-management teams during big fires. Trump's reductions have created a dramatic dropoff in the number of both firefighters and firefighting supervisors in both national parks and national forests, he said.
"The mid- to long-term impacts from this is not going to be good, and the public is really going to see it and suffer the consequences," he said.
Risk to visitors, public lands and economic vitality
National parks in particular, and public lands in general, are among the most popular functions of the federal government, polls show. The Trust for Public Land in a recent survey conducted by YouGov found that 74% of Americans oppose closing public lands, 63% oppose layoffs, and 62% oppose funding reductions. TPL noted that with such overwhelming reputations, federal leaders should reconsider budget cuts.
"Simply put, there are fewer rangers, wildlife and conservation experts, and stewards on the ground ‒ just when they're needed most," Trust for Public Land CEO Carrie Besnette Hauser told USA TODAY. "This isn't just a risk to visitor experience, it's a risk to the health of our lands and the economic vitality of rural and gateway communities, from Maine down to Florida, to Texas and Hawaii. Our public lands are more than beautiful places. They are economic engines, job creators, and essential spaces for healing, connection, and shared history."
Given the reality on the ground, however, Cassidy Jones, a former park service ranger who now works for the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Association, said her friends and former colleagues are all preparing to do their best to serve the public as the summer season ramps up.
Like McGary, Jones asked park and forest visitors to be as understanding and prepared as possible this summer, and to be prepared to see things like park superintendents working in visitor centers. Other parks have reported making plans to have wildlife biologists clean restrooms or are cycling office staff into campground management.
"While most parks may feel very typical on the surface, there's a lot going on in the background," Jones said. "The unfortunate end of that for visitors is that they will be fed this vision of parks where it's business as usual, but it's going to be very far from that behind the scenes."

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Opinion - Traveling in the Trump era: No, you don't have to apologize for being American
President Trump's return to the White House has revived a familiar media genre — columns lamenting how 'ashamed' Americans supposedly feel when traveling abroad. USA Today's recent headline blared, ''I didn't vote for him': How American tourists are navigating global perceptions.' It tells the story of how a couple actually canceled their overseas vacation out of fear they'd be mistaken for Trump supporters. The BBC followed with, ''People might treat us differently': Trump era leaves U.S. tourists in Paris feeling shame.' A Boston Globe columnist also chimed in: 'Trump's behavior makes me embarrassed to be an American.' To quantify the hand-wringing, a recent survey found that 72 percent of 'experienced' U.S. travelers worry they might feel unwelcome abroad. The underlying assumption is clear: Foreign distaste for Trump taints every U.S. passport holder. But that anxiety reveals more about the worldview of those making the claim — usually progressive, elite, Western — than it does about how Americans are actually received overseas. It also reveals how media narratives shape public expectations. Of course Americans fear being unwelcome — after all, the media keep telling them they will or should be. In the time since Trump won last November, I have spent significant time in Greenland, Vietnam, England, Panama and Mexico — countries that have all been in Trump's crosshairs in some way. Not once did I experience hostility. After traveling through dozens of countries on five continents under both Republican and Democratic presidents, I have found the fretting about being American abroad to be wildly overstated — a projection of domestic political angst, not a reflection of global reality. Yes, most foreigners know who our president is, especially when he is as headline-grabbing as Trump. And yes, they often have opinions — don't we all? But the idea that everyday Americans are routinely shunned, judged, or made to feel unwelcome abroad because of Trump is a fantasy born of our own political obsessions. In truth, Americans are generally welcomed abroad. And when we aren't, it has less to do with politics than with other things — for example, our cultural obliviousness, our sheer numbers traveling, or the pressure that affluent travelers inevitably place on their local housing markets. Sure, some people abroad dislike Trump and may judge Americans accordingly. But most are preoccupied with their own politics, lives, and problems and understand that a president doesn't define his entire population. Yes, Trump is a globally recognized figure — so are Lebron James and Taylor Swift. Recognition is not reverence, nor is it revulsion. If you include the entire population, about 23 percent of American citizens voted for Trump. The odds are good that any American you meet abroad did not. And more to the point, most foreigners — like most Americans and even most Trump supporters — hold nuanced views about Trump. Last month in Nuuk, Greenland, I met an EU bureaucrat who said she had been alarmed by Trump's 2016 election, since his 'rocket man' tweets about North Korea initially had her fearing nuclear war. But after watching his unexpectedly cordial summit with Kim Jong Un, she reconsidered. 'Don't just look to where Trump is hitting the ball,' she said of Trump's approach to foreign affairs. 'It will ricochet a couple of times and then perhaps fall in the pocket.' She, like others I have met abroad, holds a view of Trump that is simultaneously skeptical and strangely admiring — a nuance absent from the editorial pages of most American newspapers. In Greenland, I met some who despised Trump and some who genuinely admired him. Most responded to Trump's talk of purchasing Greenland with wry amusement. Some even gave a grinning, shrugging acknowledgment that at least he'd put their country on the map. All the while, a thousand think-pieces back home were insisting that everyone in Greenland loathed him. In Hanoi, a woman told me she initially admired Trump's unconventional approach to adversaries. She said she has grown more skeptical as his tariffs have hurt her country. That's not blind praise or a knee-jerk rejection — it's nuance, the kind many reporters fail to register even among Americans. Just as often, the response is indifference. When I asked a Peruvian friend in Lima what she thought of Trump voters, she replied flatly: 'I don't.' When I visited Peru, I didn't know the name of its president — why should she be consumed with ours? The U.S. wields outsized global influence, but it is narcissism to assume the world is constantly thinking about us. Maybe we should get over ourselves. Many liberals feel compelled to grovel, to disavow Trump the moment they leave U.S. soil. I never have, any more than I expected praise during earlier travels because global media darling Barack Obama was our president. I don't buy into reflected glory any more than I do reflected shame. Americans reluctant to travel while Trump is president should not let pundits and alarmists talk them out of seeing the world. A U.S. passport is one of the greatest privileges of being American, opening nearly every border, often visa-free. Yes, being American might at times make you a target. Far more often, though, you will find respect, curiosity, and kindness. Most people abroad aren't interested in judging strangers for their country's politics. They are more likely to judge you for how you behave. So, to my fellow Americans: Use that passport proudly. Be ambassadors for the best of American values: our openness, our generosity, our eagerness to learn. That is what people abroad will remember most — not our president, but us. Daniel Allott, the former opinion editor at The Hill, is the author of 'On the Road in Trump's America: A Journey into the Heart of a Divided Country.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Columbus agency says travel ban impedes refugees from family reunification
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Columbus has become a second home for thousands of refugees fleeing countries included in President Donald Trump's travel ban, many of whom now worry about family left behind. 'It is painful to see doors close on those who have already faced so much,' central Ohio refugee agency employee Dianna Russell said. Russell is the director of institutional advancement, marketing and communications for central Ohio refugee resettlement agency Ethiopian Tewahedo Social Services, a Columbus nonprofit that helps refugees and immigrants from more than 90 countries establish roots in central Ohio. According to state data, nearly 1,300 refugees moved to Columbus in 2024. More than 1,000 came from countries that are fully or partially banned indefinitely. More than 400,000 Ohioans see drivers license suspensions lifted Effective June 9, Trump banned new arrivals from Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Citizens of Burundi, Cuba, Loas, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela are severely limited. People who were granted asylum or refugee status before the ban took effect are not included in the ban. Refugees and asylum seekers differ from immigrants, although they may share similar experiences depending on their situations. Refugees and asylum seekers ask for protection because of dangers in their home countries, and are approved to seek safety in the U.S. after lengthy federal background checks. Russell said that although the restrictions do not suspend refugee resettlement, they could limit or stop reunification with family members still abroad. 'Clients who have worked hard to build a future in the United States now fear that loved ones will not be able to join them,' Russell said. 'Others who had hoped to bring aging parents, spouses or children to safety may now face indefinite delays or denials.' How a small town revived into 'Ohio's most loveable downtown' In 2024, Ohio accepted refugees from 11 of the 19 countries under full or partial bans, primarily from the Republic of the Congo and Afghanistan. In Columbus, refugees mostly came from Somalia (301 refugees arriving in 2024), Afghanistan (294) and the Republic of the Congo (246). Trump provided reasons for banning entry from each country. Trump said Somalia is banned for not having appropriate screening measures and a lack of centralized control, Afghanistan is banned for the Taliban's influence and the Republic of the Congo is banned for high rates of overstaying visas. Russell said the reasons for the travel bans are the same reasons many refugees came to the U.S. in the first place. 'The emotional toll is especially heavy for those with family members still in areas affected by violence, conflict or humanitarian crises,' Russell said. Columbus has the second-largest Somali population in the U.S., with an estimated 60,000 Somali immigrants. Most Somali-born Columbus residents are refugees, escaping a 30-year civil war compounded by natural disasters. Somalia was also included in Trump's 2017 travel ban. At the time, Somali refugee Amina Ibrahim told NBC4 that her 5-year-old son was stuck in a refugee camp in Uganda, and the travel ban prevented him from reuniting with family members. Protest against ICE raids held in Columbus Haitian immigrants are also included, just months after making headlines when Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance helped perpetuate rumors about Haitian residents in Springfield on the campaign trail. City, county and state officials have repeatedly said the claims were false and unfounded. Columbus residents have been vocal in supporting immigrants and refugees, with hundreds rallying Tuesday night to oppose ICE raids. Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther's office said the city 'strongly opposes' the travel ban, believing it 'targets' individuals based on their country of origin or religion. 'These policies do not reflect our values and undermine the strength that diversity brings to our communities,' Ginther's office said. 'We remain committed to our values, to being a welcoming city and to protecting the well-being and safety of everyone who lives in our city.' Other elected officials disagree. Speaking to Fox News, Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) said the ban will help protect Americans. 'These countries are basically failed nations, they have no ability to vet who's leaving their country,' Moreno said. 'We're not going to put American citizens in jeopardy.' NBC4 asked Moreno, a Colombian immigrant, about these comments and about the ban's effect on American-born Ohioans and the 5.3% of the state who were born abroad. Moreno did not respond to the inquiry. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Trump's new travel ban leaves narrow openings for challengers
The Trump administration's travel ban presents a complex case for immigration advocates who have challenged previous efforts by President Trump to close the U.S. to certain foreigners. Trump needed multiple bites at the apple during his first term before the Supreme Court upheld the third version of his so-called Muslim ban in 2018. His latest version is more sweeping, targeting 19 countries instead of seven. It's also more narrow in the exceptions that would allow people to skirt the new restrictions. Trump's Supreme Court-approved travel ban was finally able to win over the courts with the argument it was needed on national security grounds. But his latest travel ban also points to visa overstay rates as a rationale for blocking citizens from U.S. travel. That addition is something that could provide an opening to legal challenges, said experts interviewed by The Hill. 'The rationales that are given in the order go far beyond national security-related justifications,' said Ahilan Arulanantham, co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law. He noted that when the Supreme Court upheld Trump's first travel ban, 'they were focused almost exclusively on national security-related justifications.' 'These are justifications that are not in any way national security related. They're just immigration policy rationales. … That's definitely an area of potential legal vulnerability.' Trump's travel ban places full restrictions on citizens from 12 countries: Afghanistan, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. It also places partial restrictions on seven other countries: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela. For some countries, the Trump administration's latest ban cites faulty 'screening and vetting measures' inhibiting U.S. Embassy staff from reviewing visa candidates. But the executive order repeatedly references countries' visa overstay rates — the percentage at which a country's citizens remain in the U.S. beyond the time period allowed under their visa. 'It's just collective punishment. None of the people who are banned under this proclamation are banned for anything that they did wrong, or any actual individual suspicion that they will do something wrong,' said Adam Bates, a counsel at the International Refugee Assistance Project. 'It's just this kind of collective punishment. 'We don't trust your country. We don't trust your government. We don't trust you based on no other reason than where you were born — not because of anything you did or have done or will do.'' Raha Wala, vice president for strategy and partnerships for the National Immigration Law Center, said those inconsistencies will likely factor in the lawsuit. 'One of the real legal defects of this new, expanded ban is that it's completely arbitrary. You know, folks from Canada have one of the highest visa overstay rates, but they're not on this ban list,' he said. In issuing the new ban, the administration highlighted an Egyptian man arrested in an attack on demonstrators in Boulder, Colo., calling for the release of hostages held by Hamas. The man, Mohamed Soliman, filed for asylum shortly after arrival but overstayed his initial visa. Yet the administration did not include Egypt on its travel ban, which Wala argued shows it is an 'arbitrary and capricious, expanded ban' designed to 'ban or restrict individuals from countries that President Trump, perhaps personally, just doesn't like.' He added that the ban would disproportionately hit 'lots of countries of Black folk, brown folk, Asian folk and Latino folk.' Trump has defended the exclusion of Egypt. 'Egypt has been a country that we deal with very closely. They have things under control. The countries that we have don't have things under control,' Trump told reporters in the Oval Office earlier this month. Arulanantham said litigation will likely include a review of visa overstay rates for countries not included in the ban. 'I think it's highly problematic to assume that, 'Oh, because some people from Burundi overstay, therefore we should assume that the others will and ban them all.' It's obviously highly problematic from a moral perspective. It's discriminatory. But if you're going to take that kind of approach that you have to ask the question like, 'OK, well, are these really outlying countries?'' he asked. Trump has already moved to lift protections on citizens from a number of the countries on the travel ban list, such as Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela. Former President Biden designated Temporary Protected Status (TPS) — protections from deportation — for migrants from Afghanistan, Venezuela and Haiti. He also started a parole program that granted entry for two years and work permits to citizens from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela and Nicaragua if they could secure a U.S.-based financial sponsor. Trump has since scrapped the parole program while terminating TPS for countries now included in the travel ban. Those moves have been challenged in court. In stripping TPS, Trump has argued Afghans, Haitians and Venezuelans no longer merit the temporary refuge the protections give for those fleeing civil unrest or natural disasters. All three countries are currently roiling from various political controversies and are facing severe food insecurity. 'For the purposes of terminating TPS, Afghanistan is a safe, stable, secure country. And for the purpose of banning Afghans from getting visas, Afghanistan is a terrorist-run failed state,' Bates said. 'They're self-contradicting.' State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott defended the ban as a national security measure as well as 'broader action from this administration on a whole host of visa issues.' 'This is a national security imperative,' he said during a briefing earlier this month. 'Do we have the ability to vet people coming in, and this, again, has been that priority from the beginning of this administration. Can we say with confidence that people coming to the United States have been properly vetted? Is there essential authority in these countries that can confirm that? Can we trust what they're telling us?' While immigration advocates felt confident the new travel ban was discriminatory, they hedged on whether any challenge would be successful in court. 'It's certainly possible, it's very possible, the Supreme Court upholds this,' Arulanantham said, noting that such a move would have 'very dramatic impacts on immigrant communities' and separate families. Wala also expressed some doubts. 'I don't want to oversell the case, so to speak,' he said. 'Are we super confident this particular Supreme Court is going to come down the right side of this one? Well, not necessarily, because they upheld what we viewed and still view to be a very unconstitutional ban the prior time.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.