Thousands of Americans who work for the U.S. Agency for International Development around the world will be placed on leave by Friday night, and those overseas ordered to return to the U.S. within weeks, according to a notice from the Trump administration.
The internal agency announcement, sent late Tuesday, is the latest strike against USAID, the main U.S. government agency responsible for foreign humanitarian aid. President Donald Trump and his allies, including tech mogul Elon Musk, appear determined to shrink the agency and possibly subsume it into the State Department, despite protests by Democrats who say such drastic changes require congressional approval.
The Impact on USAID Staff
Dealing with overseas staff is trickier, not least because it involves bringing home numerous people who will need to uproot their families. The agency said those staffers will be given roughly a month to return to the U.S. and that it would “arrange and pay for return travel.”
Concerns and Reactions
The numbers involved were not entirely clear. USAID boasts that it has a global workforce of more than 10,000 people, but it works with many contractors and foreign nationals. The notice Tuesday said many contracts would be terminated. But direct hires are likely to continue to be paid, at least while they are technically still on leave.
The notice left USAID officials and contractors in shock, even after a week of drastic moves by the Trump administration to dismantle the agency.
Democratic lawmakers have railed against such moves, describing it as illegal and unconstitutional for the Trump administration, alongside Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency initiative, to effectively shutter an independent U.S. agency without congressional consent.
Security Concerns
Three current and two former USAID officials also raised concerns about the safety of USAID employees and contractors serving in conflict-zone countries such as the Congo and South Sudan as the Trump administration put the agency on ice.
These officials, granted anonymity to discuss internal matters, said staff and contractors were cut out of internal U.S. government systems that provided them threat assessments and an app that can alert diplomatic security services to their locations in case of emergency.
“They’re endangering U.S. personnel abroad in the name of efficiency back home, to say nothing of the lives this will cost with a cut off of food and medical aid to the most needy,” one official said.
Amy MacKinnon contributed to this report.
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