The U.S. Agency for International Development says all direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave around the globe on Friday, with a plan to return workers to the U.S. within 30 days.
It’s an effort to reassure thousands of workers who feel stranded and without direction about their family’s futures.
Massive changes by President Trump and his efficiency team, led by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, will result in fewer than 300 employees at the agency, a $50 billion Kennedy-era program that offers American aid abroad.
Mr. Musk says USAID is a den of waste and corruption, while its defenders say the program is a good example of “soft power” that keeps foreign nations on good terms with the U.S. instead of adversaries.
Efforts to cull its workforce from thousands to a few hundred caused widespread confusion and fear among workers posted abroad.
USAID, in a notice on its homepage, said it’s working with the State Department to accommodate workers and address potential hardships.
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“The agency will consider case-by-case exceptions and return travel extensions based on personal or family hardship, mobility or safety concerns, or other reasons,” the notice said. “For example, the agency will consider exceptions based on the timing of dependents’ school term, personal or familial medical needs, pregnancy and other reasons.”
It said further guidance would be forthcoming.
The agency also said personnel could opt to remain where they are around the globe.
“Beyond 30 days, however, agency-funded and arranged return travel may not be available unless an individualized exception is sought and granted,” the agency said.
Court papers filed by the American Foreign Service Association in a lawsuit against Mr. Trump say their employees’ lives have been disrupted.
One employee, an unidentified pregnant woman called “Beth Doe,” said her family arranged for maternal care and schooling in Washington but was redirected due to the change in her employment status.
SEE ALSO: Labor unions sue to stop Trump’s USAID shutdown
“We have lost over $4,000 already due to breaking the lease, withdrawing our child from preschool and breaking the contract with the doula,” the employee wrote in court papers.
Another, “Eric Doe,” said he is posted abroad with two children with special needs and no accommodations for them back home.
“My family has made untold sacrifices for a country that we thought valued public service. Yet here we are being treated with cruelty and contempt. Now my family is facing the prospect of being evicted from our home, and my kids are facing the prospect of being uprooted from their school,” he wrote. “In the very near future, we will be back in the United States homeless, without a car, without a school district, without employment, without a pension and without health insurance. This experience has been degrading, dehumanizing and traumatizing for my family.”
Mr. Trump has defended Mr. Musk’s work on USAID and other agencies, saying it uncovered waste and rampant funding to diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
“You see it with the USAID, but you’re going to see it even more so with other agencies, and other parts of government,” Mr. Trump said.
“The whole thing is a fraud,” he said of USAID. “Very little being put to good use.”
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.