A full year into President Donald Trump’s second term, College Park is grappling with the impact of executive orders, employee layoffs, funding cuts and new policies.
The administration’s changes have affected the city’s residents, economy and plans for future development, according to College Park Mayor Fazlul Kabir.
“We do not know how things will actually go in the future,” Kabir said. “Our policies will stay as used to be, and we will be supporting the community in any way we can.”
The most prominent consequence of Trump’s agenda stems from the combination of the longest federal government shutdown in the country’s history and the Department of Government Efficiency’s deferred resignation and layoff initiatives. According to Kabir, the city is home to around 1,200 federal employees and even more federal contractors, many of whom lost their jobs or went without pay during the 43-day shutdown.
According to the U.S. Bureau of City Labor Statistics (BLS), Maryland lost an estimated 14,600 federal civilian jobs from January to September 2025, which does not include the Oct. 1 to Nov. 12 government shutdown. Additionally, in September 2025, Prince George’s County saw an unemployment rate of 4.8%, while College Park had a higher rate of 5.8%, according to BLS.
“Neighbors have had to take jobs that they are not trained for, and with much lower pay,” Kabir said. “I know that they’re concerned and they’re struggling.”
In response, Kabir said the city increased the overall budget for its financial assistance program to $100,000 to accommodate more residents. The program offers grants to residents who need help paying rent and bills.
“Many people didn’t know [about the program],” Kabir said, noting the city is promoting it widely through its weekly newsletters and local media.
Among those who have lost jobs in the past year are some employees of the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC), which is slated for closing; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Center for Weather and Climate Prediction, located in College Park; and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt.
In addition to actual job losses, Trump’s July 1 decision to halt plans for construction of an FBI headquarters building in Greenbelt could cause the loss of potential jobs and residents.
A new FBI headquarters would bring an estimated 7,500 jobs to Prince George’s County, according to a press release from the county. Additionally, BARC might lose more than 1,000 jobs in the region in addition to the hundreds of jobs it supports in the local community, according to a press release from the Maryland attorney general.
“This plan would threaten the jobs and financial security of hundreds of Marylanders whose expertise and dedication have made BARC a premier agricultural research center for more than a century,” Attorney General Anthony Brown said in the Sept. 5 press release. “The Prince George’s County workforce brings irreplaceable expertise and knowledge to their work that has been built up over generations, helping feed families not just in Maryland but all across the United States.”
Another economic policy affecting College Park is the redistricting of opportunity zones mandated by the sweeping tax and spending bill that Trump signed into law on July 4. Opportunity zones, created in 2017, offer federal tax incentives to encourage long-term private investment in economically distressed communities. While the new law ensures opportunity zones are permanent, it also creates stricter eligibility requirements with a focus on rural areas.
“College Park was very firmly an opportunity zone,” Rehanna Barre, the city’s economic development coordinator, said. “Now with this new act, it’s going to redistrict that, and that’s putting us in limbo about whether or not that opportunity would be available to our city.”
Outside of economic effects, the president’s policies targeting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs at institutions that accept federal funding, as well as an increased presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in the area, have made some residents feel isolated and unsafe, according to Kabir.
“I was told that a family was so worried that they did not want to expose themselves to anyone outside of their family, because of what might happen to their family,” the mayor shared. “They’re worried about their own safety and their family members. So there’s a concern of fear among the family and the community.”
Jade Olson, the communications director for United Academics of Maryland, the University of Maryland’s (UMD) faculty labor union, explained that some faculty and students also feel threatened because of heightened activity by ICE.
“This administration is creating an environment of fear and anxiety for a lot of our international scholars and our community members, regardless of their documentation status, or even regardless of whether they’re an immigrant at all,” Olson said. “Any community benefits from having a diversity of perspectives, from having people from different parts of the world, from different areas of social life, from having those people represented and in the room. And when you have this attack on people who come from somewhere else, you’re undermining our ability to fulfill our educational mission as well as our research mission.”
In addition, the salaries of some UMD faculty and researchers who rely on federal funding, for DEI and other research, are at stake. The University System of Maryland has lost an estimated $120 million in grants canceled in 2025, Olson said.
“The targeting of the funding cuts on a political basis means that our researchers who study some of the most important and most pressing problems facing society, such as climate change and public health inequities, are now seeing fear that they will lose their jobs, that their positions will be terminated, or that they will be forced to completely change what they research because the government doesn’t like what they currently research,” Olson added.
Although the city does not receive any tax revenue from the university, a loss of jobs and students could significantly decrease spending by students and faculty at local shops, restaurants and rental housing, Kabir said.
“Our city believes in diversity; we are one College Park,” he said. “Diversity is our strength, and we welcome people from all diverse backgrounds, and we celebrate that, so our policy is not going to change.”