USAID direct hires put on leave worldwide, except those deemed essential

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

USAID direct hires put on leave worldwide, except those deemed essential

By ELLEN KNICKMEYER and MATTHEW LEE
Updated 9:50 PM EST, February 4, 2025

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is placing U.S. Agency for International Development direct-hire staffers around the world on leave, except those deemed essential.

A notice posted online Tuesday gives the workers 30 days to return home, upending the aid agency’s six-decade mission overseas.

Thousands of USAID employees already had been laid off and programs worldwide shut down after President Donald Trump imposed a sweeping freeze on foreign assistance.

Elon Musk’s budget-slashing Department of Government Efficiency had taken USAID’s website offline over the weekend as it steadily dismantled the agency, which has been a special target of Musk, Trump and Republicans in the first two-and-a-half weeks of Trump’s second term. The website came back online Tuesday night, with the notice of recall or termination for global staffers its sole post.

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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/trump-usaid-layoffs-7e0a159d8a419c4c9388ab02e8259f23

[cliffside]

1. This is horrible ...

full article

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/04/us/usaid-musk-trump-rubio-cuts.html?unlocked_article_code=1.uk4.UPRc.6AqjIX3c3ZB-&smid=url-share

"... The American government has not recently undertaken such a large effort to move thousands of employees and their family members back to the United States from abroad, and the cost of the operation would be enormous. Some U.S.A.I.D. employees would need to be moved out of countries where wars or conflicts are raging, and that would most likely require military evacuation flights.

Adding to the confusion is the fact that many agency employees in Washington who would help arrange for transportation and temporary housing in the United States have been put on administrative leave. Employees overseas are trying to figure out who to contact in Washington. Trump administration political appointees ordered the U.S.A.I.D. headquarters to physically shut down this week and locked many employees out of their email accounts and internal systems...

... Mr. Rubio, who took control of U.S.A.I.D. as its acting administrator on Monday, insisted during a Fox News interview that night that the takeover was “not about getting rid of foreign aid.” He added that the goal was to reform the agency, which had functioned largely independently for decades.

“But now we have rank insubordination,” he said, adding that U.S.A.I.D. employees had been “completely uncooperative, so we had no choice but to take dramatic steps to bring this thing under control.”