An employee of the Federal Emergency Management Agency who is among those placed on leave after signing a letter of dissent has warned in an exclusive Newsweek interview that it will only further diminish the agency's capacity to respond to disasters.

Jennifer Forester, 41, a FEMA reports analyst who was placed on leave on Tuesday, told Newsweek that "because FEMA is already a fairly lean agency, many of us undergo training to assist other departments, including verifying documents so that survivors can receive benefits, or taking phone calls from survivors in the aftermath of a disaster.

"Every worker pulled from the field right now out of already-understaffed places like Texas is an incalculable loss to response."

Forester, who said she has worked for FEMA for a year and a half,

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