The United States International Development Agency is expected to reduce approximately 290 workers of the more than 5,000 Foreign Services officials, public officials and personal service contractors that it currently employs, according to two sources familiar with the plans.
Most of the approximately 3,000 institutional support contractors have already been fired or licensed. The state of the approximately 5,000 nationals of the foreign service that serve worldwide is not yet clear.
Humanitarian assistance offices, global health and management offices are expected to retain the majority of staff members, but according to the expected plan, only 12 people would be dedicated to the entire Africa continent and eight people for all Asia.
Europe, which had around 600 employees dedicated between the field and the offices of Washington, DC, last year, will now be served by only 10 people.
Thousands of USAID employees learned that they would be on administrative license starting at 11:59 pm on Friday through a message posted on USAID.gov this week. USAID staff abroad received 30 days to return to the United States.
When asked about the additional orientation for USAID employees who face uncertainty, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the actions were not destined to be “disruptive.”
“We are not trying to be harmful to people’s personal life,” Rubio told journalists in Santo Domingo on Thursday during a joint availability of media with the President of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader. “We are not trying to do it, we are not being punitive here, but this is the only way we have been able to obtain the Usaid cooperation.”
He said that exceptions would be made for employees with extraordinary circumstances, saying: “We do not list them all, but we are willing to listen to them.”
The American Foreign Service Association, a union that represents 1,800 foreign service officers working for USAID, and the American Federation of Government employees sued the Trump administration on Thursday, claiming that efforts to dissolve the agency “have generated a Global humanitarian crisis by abruptly stopping the crucial work of employees, beneficiaries and contractors of USAID. “
“Not even one of the actions of the defendants to dismantle USAID was taken in accordance with the authorization of Congress. And in accordance with the Federal Statute, Congress is the only entity that can legally dismantle the agency,” says the demand .
The lawsuit asks a federal court in Washington to issue a temporary restriction order and a preliminary court order that orders the administration to stop the closure.
The American Foreign Service Association had criticized the Trump Administration in a statement on Wednesday for “punishing dedicated public servants and hurting their families for simply doing their job” when he remembered the foreign service personnel from abroad.
“Beyond the damage to the interests of the United States abroad, this decision will impose a huge financial and logistics burden: to cost US taxpayers dozens of millions of dollars and overwhelm the personnel responsible for managing evacuation,” he said The group.
The action in Usaid is one of a series of efforts of the Trump administration to drastically reduce the federal workforce.
The administration said last week that it would offer purchases to approximately 2 million federal workers such as the Trump billionaire and Elon Musk technology, who leads the government’s efficiency department, tries to rebuild the federal government and abolish some of its agencies.
A federal judge in Boston temporarily blocked the purchase offer pending a hearing on Monday.
