After years of preparing to be a foster mom, Atlanta CDC worker Bree Danner had finally won an opening to foster a little girl—one hour before DOGE pulled her job.
“My career in public service has completely been destroyed for absolutely no reason,” shetold the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Caseworker Danner was in her Atlanta office at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in February when the good news came from the adoption worker, but even then, she knew theTrump administration was eliminating federal government jobs. And she worried about hers.
She stopped worrying less than an hour after she hung up with the caseworker because she and her team learned DOGE planned to fire thousands of probationary workers like her as part of sweeping layoffs across the federal government. Danner had worked for the CDC for years collaborating with community organizations for grants to fight substance abuse, but she had recently changed departments, which temporarily relegated her back to “probationary” status, per CDC protocols. The timing made her a prime DOGE target.
Danner says she had wanted to house a child in need for the long term, but Danner doesn’t have a large savings account. She is also single. So, she called the caseworker back and said she couldn’t move the child into an freshly unstable situation.
“I had a lot of guilt at not being able to take in that little girl,” Danner told AJC reporters.
Read the full Atlanta Journal-Constitution storyhere.