Arizona Parks Under Assault: Donald Trump’s Shutdown Threatens Treasured National Parks, Over $2 Billion for Gateway Communities

Republicans’ Shutdown Hurts Arizona More, Derails Grand Canyon Construction, and Turbocharges Trump and Burgum’s Park Fail-By-Design Plan

HELENA, MT – As Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans’ government shutdown drags on into its fourth week, the danger for Arizona’s treasured national parks, and the gateway communities that depend on tourism dollars to survive, is abundantly clear. Arizona is home to numerous national parks and historic sites, which are critical for the state and gateway communities' economic livelihoods.

Arizona is suffering more than other states as Trump’s shutdown continues. Visitors to Arizona parks and public lands contributed more than $2 billion to the surrounding gateway communities in 2024. Now, not only are those communities missing out on potential revenue from visitors, entrance fees that support Arizona parks and historic sites operation and maintenance are going uncollected. Work to rebuild and restore damage caused by the Bravo Dragon fire in Grand Canyon National Park is being severely derailed with the shutdown. This is all part of Trump and his Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s nationwide, systematic fail-by-design scheme.

Arizona parks are open, but unlike Trump’s previous federal government shutdowns, the state of Arizona does not have the funding available to keep them open. Interior Secretary Burgum’s acting National Park Service director is tapping into other funds to keep a limited amount of staff around. Estimates show gateway communities and states are losing millions of dollars per day under Trump’s shutdown. 

Analysis of court documents detailing Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s plans show at least 2,050 more critical Interior employees are slated to be fired, with 29% of the Pacific West and 20% of the regional support park staff to be eliminated, which is on top of the nearly 25% of park staffing cuts already carried out through Trump’s DOGE. Arizona’s Bureau of Land Management staff will also be reduced by an additional 9% and upwards of 40% of the workforce in the U.S. Geological Survey would evaporate. Arizona is home to over 3,500 Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, and Forest Service employees.

“Trump and Interior Secretary Burgum are gut punching America’s cherished national parks and the dedicated employees that care for them. Between the shutdown and draconian DOGE cuts, with even more crippling staffing reductions and funding cuts on the horizon, our nation’s parks face a manufactured fail-by-design disaster under Interior Secretary Burgum,” said Jayson O’Neill, Save Our Parks spokesperson. “Even before the shutdown, park operations were hanging on by a thread, and now they’re being pushed to their breaking point. Every day that Trump and Doug Burgum don’t reverse course it puts every visitor, gateway community, and park in grave danger, especially at popular destinations like the Grand Canyon.”

Save Our Parks’ “Parks Under Assault Map” uses government data from the National Park Service to expose that cross-country devastation: cuts to education, visitor services, and safety response mean that places like the Grand Canyon in Arizona are no longer able to operate at full capacity. Even before the government shutdown began, at least 10 parks across the country were operating with compromised emergency response systems, putting park employees, visitors, wildlife, and gateway communities in immediate danger.

Source: National Park Service, Internal Report, July 2025.

Arizona National Park Impacts Prior to Trump’s Shutdown:

• Grand Canyon National Park - Due to staffing shortages, the park is unable to reliably respond to visitor-wildlife interactions impacting visitor safety.Park staff have been forced to reduce the number of sponsored student field trips, as well as ranger-led interpretive programs.The park is unable to regularly maintain its campgrounds, no longer has any electricians on staff, is unable to reliably provide pest management services, is unable to service both immediate needs and preventative work in all park structures, and is also no longer monitoring or working to prevent the spread of zoonotic diseases.

While conflicted billionaire Interior Secretary Burgum tells Americans to just ignore his failures, Save Our Parks is asking the public to report issues at our parks and on our public lands at our tip line. 

Additional background:

It’s no secret the Trump administration wanted this shutdown to nefariously fire more critical civil servants at a time when our parks are already run by skeleton crews. Trump’s “Department of Government Efficiency” chainsawed about 7,500 jobs at Interior, making up more than ten percent of its workforce and nearly 24% of the park services. 

If Trump and Burgum get their wish, more crippling staffing reductions will be coming soon. Trump’s budget calls for an additional 30% funding cuts, and Burgum’s Interior Department reduction in force (RIF) plan could mean additional workforce reductions of up to 50% at some divisions and nearly 30% additional reductions at the National Park Service. 

During Trump’s last government shutdown, his administration forced most parks to stay open by illegally redirecting funds, while furloughing National Park Service employees. The results? Overflowing toilets, trash spilling out of unserviced containers, vandalism, illegal off-roading and joyriding, and massive damage to our treasured resources that may never be repaired. In a letter, U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) urged Burgum to classify Interior Department employees essential during this shutdown for these very reasons: to protect our public lands and to keep Americans safe.

As Trump and Burgum repeat the same mistakes from Trump’s last GOP shutdown, they haven’t let the pain they’re inflicting on the country distract them from their campaign of mass censorship across America’s parks. Park visitors this summer were subjected to requests asking that they flag any “negative content” deemed “inappropriately disparaging to Americans past or living.” Recent investigations reveal the administration has systematically ordered the removal of signs, exhibits, and educational materials addressing slavery, Indigenous persecution, civil rights struggles, climate change, and other aspects of American history they don’t like.

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