The Federal Emergency Management Agency has suspended all of its training and education programs for emergency managers across the country — except for those “directly supporting the 2026 FIFA World Cup.”
FEMA’s National Training and Education Division offers nearly 300 courses for local first responders and emergency managers, while FEMA’s National Disaster and Emergency Management University (formerly called the Emergency Management Institute) acts as the central training organization for emergency management in the United States. Since funding for the Department of Homeland Security lapsed on February 14, FEMA has instructed NTED partners to “cease course delivery operations,” according to communication reviewed by Heatmap. The NDEMU website and independent study materials have also been taken down.
The decision to remove NDEMU materials and freeze NTED courses not related to the World Cup has left emergency management students around the country in the lurch, with some just a few credits shy of certifications that would allow them to seek jobs. Mid-career employees have likewise been unable to meet their continuing training requirements, with courses pending “rescheduling” at a later date.
In states like California, where all public employees are sworn in as disaster service workers, jurisdictions have been left without the resources to train their employees. Additionally, certain preparedness grants require proof that emergency departments are compliant with frameworks such as the National Incident Management System and the Incident Command System. “The federal government says we need to be compliant with this, and they give us a way to do that, and then they take it away,” Laura Maskell, the emergency training and exercise coordinator for the city of San Jose, told me.
Depending on how long the DHS shutdown lasts, the training freeze is likely to exacerbate already dire staffing shortages at many municipal offices around the country. Emergency managers often juggle multiple jobs, ranging from local hazard and mitigation planning to public communication and IT. They also serve as the point people for everything from cybersecurity attacks to spectator safety to extreme-weather disaster response, and staying up to date on the latest procedures and technologies is critical enough to require ongoing education to maintain certification.
Training can be extensive. Becoming a certified emergency manager requires 100 hours of general management and 100 hours of emergency management courses — many of which students complete independently, online, while working other jobs — nearly all of which are currently suspended. The courses are utilized by many other first responders and law enforcement groups, too, from firefighters to university campus safety officers.
Emergency management officials and students I spoke with told me they see FEMA’s decision as capricious — “an intentional choice the government has made to further disrupt emergency management,” as a student who wanted to remain anonymous to protect their FEMA-funded employer from backlash told me — given that FEMA materials were not removed or trainings canceled during previous shutdowns. (Materials were unavailable during the most recent full-government shutdown in 2025.) In the past, FEMA has processed certifications once its offices have reopened; the exception for World Cup-related training adds to the feeling that the decision to remove materials is punitive.
“My understanding is these websites are pretty low maintenance,” Maskell said. She added, “Outside of a specific review cycle, I was not aware that there was any active maintenance or upkeep on these websites. So for them to take these down, allegedly because of the DHS shutdown, that doesn’t make sense to me.”
San Jose’s 6,800 city employees are required to take two to four designated FEMA courses, which Maskell said her team no longer has access to. “We don’t have another way” to train employees “that is readily available to get them that information in a cost-effective, standardized, most importantly up-to-the-federal-requirements way,” she added. Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, which falls within San Jose’s jurisdiction, is a World Cup site, and Maskell confirmed that in-person training specific to sports and special events has proceeded uninterrupted.
Depriving emergency managers and first responders of training seems at odds with the safe streets emphasis of the Trump administration. But FEMA has been in crisis since the DOGE cuts of early 2025, which were executed by a series of administrators who believe the agency shouldn’t exist; another 10,000 employees may be cut this spring. (Sure to deepen the chaos at the agency, Trump fired Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem earlier Thursday. FEMA did not respond to a request for comment on this story.) The White House says it wants to shift responsibility for disaster planning and response back to the states — a goal that nevertheless underscores the importance of keeping training and resources accessible, even if the website isn’t being actively updated during the DHS shutdown.
Trainings that remain caught up in the politics of the shutdown include courses at the Center for Homeland Defense and Security, the Rural Domestic Preparedness Consortium, and others. The National Domestic Preparedness Consortium, which is also affected, offers training for extreme weather disasters — education that is especially critical heading into flood and tornado season, with wildfire and hurricane season around the corner. Courses like the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center’s offering of “Evacuation Planning Strategies and Solutions” in San Francisco, one of the World Cup host cities, fall under the exemption and are expected to be held as planned.
Noem had blamed Democrats for holding up $625 million in FEMA grants for FIFA World Cup host cities, funds that would go toward security and planning. Democrats have pushed back on that line, pointing out that World Cup security funding was approved last summer and the agency missed the anticipated January award date for the grant program ahead of the DHS shutdown. Democrats have said they will not fund the department until they reach an agreement on Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s use of deadly force and detention against U.S. citizens and migrant communities. (The House is scheduled to vote Thursday afternoon on a potential DHS funding package; a scheduled Senate vote earlier in the day failed to advance.)
The federal government estimates that as many as 10 million international visitors will travel to the U.S. for the World Cup, which begins in 98 days. “Training and education scheduled for the 11 U.S. World Cup host cities,” the DHS told its partners, “will continue as planned.”
