The biggest barrier, according to an OPM official, congressional staffers, VA employees and veterans’ organizations is that human resources officials across the federal government can no longer access their own new hire records without approval from senior leadership at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

OPM has effectively locked federal agencies out of a government HR software program called USA Staffing. The agency has been taken over by allies of billionaire Elon Musk, who’s guiding the Department of Government Efficiency effort from within the White House. The DOGE team has engineered the mass firing of tens of thousands of federal workers since President Trump took office in January.