USAID workers scramble for answers after Trump pulls almost all of them off the job worldwide

By Associated Press

WASHINGTON: U.S. aid workers around the world scrambled Wednesday to pack up households or take children out of school under a sudden Trump administration order that pulled almost all of them off the job and out of the field.

The order all but shut down the six-decade mission of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the federal government’s primary agency for delivering humanitarian aid to other countries.

In Washington, Democratic lawmakers and several hundred supporters of the agency rallied outside the Capitol to protest the dismantling of the independent government organization that seeks to help people affected by wars, disasters, disease and poverty.

“We are witnessing in real time the most corrupt bargain in American history,” Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen shouted to supporters at the rally, referring to billionaire Elon Musk, his support for President Donald Trump and his role in challenging USAID and other targeted agencies.

“Lock him up!” members of the crowd chanted. They expressed frustration as well at Democratic lawmakers, who promised court battles and other efforts to stop the attacks on federal agencies and programs. “Do your job!”

USAID has been one of the agencies hardest hit as the new administration and Musk’s budget-cutting team target federal programs they say are wasteful or not aligned with a conservative agenda.

U.S. embassies in many of the more than 100 countries where USAID operates convened emergency town halls for the thousands of agency staffers and contractors looking for answers. Embassy officials said they had been given no guidance on what to tell staffers, particularly local hires, about their employment status.

A USAID contractor posted in an often violent region of the Middle East said the shutdown had placed the contractor and the contractor’s family in danger because they were unable to reach the U.S. government for help if needed.

The contractor woke up one morning earlier this week blocked from access to government email and other systems, and an emergency “panic button” app was wiped off the contractor’s smartphone.

“You really do feel cut off from a lifeline,” the contract staffer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of a Trump administration ban forbidding USAID workers to speak to people outside their agency.

Despite the administration’s assurances that the U.S. government would bring the agency’s workers safely home as ordered within 30 days, many feared being stranded in the field and left to make their own way home. Their colleagues in Washington described reactivating employee networks that had helped in the past to bring local staffers out of danger zones.

The late-night order Tuesday to abandon USAID posts worldwide comes as many of the aid workers abroad are locked out of email and emergency communications with their own government.

Most agency spending has been ordered frozen, and most workers at the Washington headquarters have been taken off the job, making it unclear how the administration will manage and pay for the abrupt relocation of thousands of staffers and their families.