Thousands of U.S. Agency for International Development workers who were laid off or placed on leave as part of restructuring efforts under the Trump administration are being given a brief window Thursday and Friday to clear out their workspaces.
USAID placed 4,080 staffers who work across the globe on leave Monday. That was joined by a "reduction in force” that will affect another 1,600 employees, a State Department spokesman said in an emailed response to questions.
USAID has been a major focus of efforts by President Donald Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency, a project led by Trump adviser Elon Musk, to reduce the size of the federal government, leaving only a small fraction of its employees on the job.
Trump and Musk have acted quickly to restructure the foreign aid agency, citing concerns that its programs do not align with the president's agenda and questioning its efficiency. This move is notable because it has not involved Congress, which authorized and funds the agency.
A report from the Congressional Research Service earlier this month stated that congressional authorization is required “to abolish, move, or consolidate USAID,” but Republican majorities in the House and Senate have not opposed the administration's actions. The administration now indicates it will reduce USAID's foreign aid contracts by more than 90% and decrease U.S. assistance abroad by $60 billion
It’s unclear how many of the more than 5,600 USAID employees who have been fired or placed on leave work at the agency's headquarters building in Washington. A notice on the agency's website said staff at other locations will have the chance to collect their personal belongings at a later date.
The notice laid out instructions for when specific groups of employees should arrive to be screened by security and escorted to their former workspaces. Those being let go must turn in all USAID-issued assets. Workers on administrative leave were told to retain their USAID-issued materials, including diplomatic passports, “until such time that they are separated from the agency.”
Many USAID workers saw the administration’s terms for retrieving their belongings as insulting. In the notice, the employees were instructed not to bring weapons, including firearms, “spear guns” and “hand grenades.” Each worker is being given just 15 minutes at their former workstation.
The administration's efforts to slash the federal government are facing various lawsuits, but court challenges to temporarily halt the shutdown of USAID have been unsuccessful.
However, a federal judge on Tuesday gave the Trump administration a deadline of this week to release billions of dollars in U.S. foreign aid, saying it had given no sign of complying with his nearly two-week-old court order to ease the funding freeze. Late Wednesday, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked that order, with Chief Justice John Roberts saying it will remain on hold until the high court has a chance to weigh in more fully.
That court action resulted from a lawsuit filed by nonprofit organizations over the cutoff of foreign assistance through USAID and the State Department. Trump froze the funds through an executive order on his first day in office, targeting programs he argued did not align with his foreign policy goals.
Virginia Democrat Rep. Gerald Connolly said in a statement that the attack on USAID employees was “unwarranted and unprecedented.” Connolly, whose district includes a sizable federal workforce, called the aid agency workers part of the “world's premier development and foreign assistance agency” who save “millions of lives every year.”