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USAID is the American government’s principal arm for overseas development. It was formed via an executive order by then President John F. Kennedy and currently employs around 10,000 people, two thirds of whom work overseas.
ADVERTISEMENTA federal judge in the United States has dealt President Donald Trump and billionaire ally Elon Musk the first setback in their dismantling of the US Agency for International Development, saying he will order a temporary halt to plans to pull thousands of agency staffers off the job.District Judge Carl Nichols, who was nominated by Trump, sided with two federal employee associations in agreeing to a pause in plans to put 2,200 employees on paid leave hours before it was due to happen.Nichols stressed his order was not a decision on the employees’ request to roll back the administration’s swiftly moving destruction of the agency.”CLOSE IT DOWN,” Trump said on social media of USAID before the judge’s ruling.USAID is the American government’s principal arm for overseas development. It was formed via an executive order by then President John F. Kennedy and currently employs around 10,000 people, two thirds of whom work overseas. The American Foreign Service Association and the American Federation of Government Employees argued that Trump lacks the authority to shut down the aid agency without approval from Congress.Democratic lawmakers have made the same argument.Trump’s administration moved quickly on Friday to erase the agency’s name. Workers on a crane scrubbed the name from the front of its Washington headquarters.They used duct tape to block it out on a sign and took down USAID flags. Someone placed a bouquet of flowers outside the door.The Trump administration and Musk, who is running a budget-cutting Department of Government Efficiency, have made USAID their biggest target so far in an unprecedented challenge of the federal government and many of its programmes.Administration appointees and Musk’s teams have shut down almost all funding for the agency, stopping aid and development programmes worldwide, placed staffers and contractors on leave and furlough and locked them out of the agency’s email and other systems.According to Democratic lawmakers, they also carted away USAID’s computer servers.”This is a full-scale gutting of virtually all the personnel of an entire agency,” Karla Gilbride, the attorney for the employee associations, told the judge.Department of Justice attorney Brett Shumate argued that the administration has all the legal authority it needs to place agency staffers on leave.”The government does this across the board every day,” Shumate said. “That’s what’s happening here. It’s just a large number.”ADVERTISEMENTFriday’s ruling is the latest setback in the courts for the Trump administration, whose policies to offer financial incentives for federal workers to resign and end birthright citizenship for anyone born in the US to someone in the country illegally have been temporarily paused by judges.Earlier on Friday, a group of half a dozen USAID officials speaking to reporters strongly disputed assertions from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that the most essential life-saving programmes abroad were getting waivers to continue funding.None were, the officials said.Among the programmes they said had not received waivers include $450 million (€435 million) in food grown by US farmers sufficient to feed 36 million people, which was not being paid for or delivered.ADVERTISEMENTAnd water supplies for 1.6 million people displaced by war in Sudan’s Darfur region, which were being cut off without money for fuel to run water pumps in the desert.The judge’s order involved the Trump administration’s decision earlier this week to pull almost all USAID workers off the job and out of the field worldwide.Besides the 2,200 workers temporarily protected from being put on leave, the fate was not clear of others who work with the agency and have been laid off, furloughed or put on leave.Trump and congressional Republicans have spoken of moving a much-reduced number of aid and development programs under the State Department.ADVERTISEMENTWithin the State Department itself, employees fear substantial staff reductions following the deadline for the Trump administration’s offer of financial incentives for federal workers to resign, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.A judge temporarily blocked that offer and set a hearing for Monday.The administration earlier this week gave almost all USAID staffers posted overseas 30 days, starting Friday, to return to the US, with the government paying for their travel and moving costs.Diplomats at embassies asked for waivers allowing more time for some, including families forced to pull their children out of schools mid-year.ADVERTISEMENTIn a notice posted on the USAID website late on Thursday, the agency clarified that none of the overseas personnel put on leave would be forced to leave the country where they work.But it said that workers who chose to stay longer than 30 days might have to cover their own expenses unless they received a specific hardship waiver.
