The Trump administration Eliminates more than a thousand positions at the American Agency for International Development (USAID), while also leaving the majority of remaining employees on the administration worldwide, just before midnight Sunday.
The Associated Press reported that it learned from the Trump government that 1,600 posts would be eliminated after revising notifications sent to USAID employees.
“From 11:59 pm EST on Sunday, February 23, 2025, all USAID Direct HIRE staff, with the exception of designated staff responsible for missionary functions, core leadership and/or specially designated programs, are placed worldwide with administrative leave,” read the notifications.
The Trump administration is planning to leave fewer than 300 employees to work, from the current 8,000 contractors and direct employees.
USAID employees send message to Trump on boxes while they leave the office for the last time
Retired United States Agency for International Development Worker Julie Hanson Swanson, links, joins supporters of USAID employees outside the USAID’s agency for Humanitarian Assistance Office in Washington, Friday, February 21, 2025. (Manuel Balce Ceneta)
The less than 300 remaining staff, together with an unknown number of the 5,000 locally hired international employees abroad, will carry out the few life -saving programs that the administration said is provisionally in force.
Redundant USAID -Staff members left their Washington, DC, offices for the last time to Friday, with a few carrying boxes scribbled with messages that seemed to have been aimed at Trump, which lowers the workforce of the agency.
“We leave the world”, read a message about a box with possessions that are taken out by a grinning employee when she ran the Humanitarian Assistance Office office from USAID.
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Recently dismissed staff of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) transports boxes with a message while they leave the work and are welcomed by former USAID employees and supporters during a Send -off outside USAID offices in Washington, DC, US, 21 February 2025. (Reuters/Brian Snyder)
Another smiling employee had a more cheerful tone, where her message reads: “You can remove the Humanitarians from USAID But you can’t get humanity out of the humanitarian. “
Thousands of employees were informed of their current resignation weeks ago, and on Friday the American district judge Carl Nichols lifted a temporarily restricted order that he had filed at the start of a lawsuit that was filed by trade unions of the government who stop a stop The massive dismissal was looking for. After he had lifted the temporary restrictive order, Nichols refused to issue an order in the longer term that the employees would have kept in their positions.
Trump has moved to intestine the agency after a 90-day break on foreign aid. He also mentioned State Secretary Marco Rubio As acting director of USAID.
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An employee removes the American Bureau for International Development Sign at their head office on 7 February 2025 in Washington, DC. (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty images)
The agency was taken under fire by the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) for alleged wasteful expenditure by Elon Musk.
Senator Joni Ernst, R -iowa, the chairman of the Senate Doge Caucus, recently was recently a list published From projects and programs she says that USAID has helped over the years, including $ 20 million to produce a Sesame Street show in Iraq.
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More examples of doubtful expenses have been discovered at USAID, including more than $ 900,000 for a “Gaza-based terror Charity” called Bayader Association for Environment and Development and a program of $ 1.5 million planned to promote “diversity, equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities “
Michael Dorgan and The Associated Press from Fox News Digital contributed to this report.
