Washington (AP)-UN-Agentur for International Development Workers-many in tears, the belongings away by storing the Trump administration into the final phase of the congress authority on Thursday in a last visit to their headquarters in today’s headquarters.
Messages that were sent in Mass mailings this week end over 90% of the USAID contracts for humanitarians and development work worldwide, and the Supreme Court has temporarily blocked the order of a judge, according to which the management of foreign aid has committed billions of dollars free judges.
The administration has informed most USAID employees in the past few days that they were on vacation or were fired, and then gave thousands of people who worked in the Washington headquarters 15-minute time windows to clear out their desks under the escort of federal officials.
Some employees cried when they carried out shopping bags and suitcases with what was left of their life work.
“Heartbreaking,” said 25-year-old Juliane Alfen, wearing a compact bag with a stuffed rabbit. Like hundreds of colleagues, Alfen received a form on Monday that her shot was “in the best interest of the government”.
“I felt that we made a difference,” said Alfen. “It is very scary to see everything before our eyes.”
Pendants called encouragement and wlogs outside or drove with their autohorns with the knocking. A little girl was a handwritten sign with the inscription next to her mother: “I am proud of you, dad.” A woman who let the building loaded with bags into tears and greeted her. She wrapped a compact amount into hugs.
USAID was one of the biggest goals of a broad campaign by President Donald Trump and the chief of cost costs Elon Musk Department of Government Efficiency (Doge to lower the greatness of the federal government.
Her actions have only left a compact fraction of USAI employees in the workplace, 60 billion US dollars in overseas and decades of US policy that helps foreign aid to assist American interests abroad by stabilizing other countries and building alliances.
Trump and Musk agree to the agenda of the Republican President and without evidence that his work is wasteful. In addition to its scope, the efforts are exceptional because it did not involve a congress in which the agency was approved and its financing was provided.
Organizations have already reported that thousands of USAID contracts for HIV programs in South Africa were permanently canceled. And despite a claim from Musk that the financing to combat Ebola outbreaks, the Associated Press received a termination announcement for a project by the Baylor College of Medicine children’s foundation, which was ready to react to Ebola cases in Uganda.
Others warned of profound strategic effects on the closure of USAID.
“The American people deserve transparent accounting of what will be lost – about terror, global health, nutritional security and competition,” said Liz Schrayer, head of the US Global Leadership Coalition, a non -profit organization that promotes US diplomatic and humanitarian efforts.
Devon Behrer, a USAID worker hired three months ago, said that the implementation of this work was always her dream.
“My plan was to come here and go in development work. My plan rose in the smoke on Monday, ”she said.
The way the life of people was swept away was “incredibly disrespectful,” added Behrer, 34.
The employees had pressed for weeks to re -enter the building to collect work shoes, family photos and other objects. Some took flowers from a bucket on the inside to place a commemorative wall and honor 99 USAID workers who were killed in service in the six decades of the agency. The employees said that the security had held them from placing the flowers.
Randy Chester, Vice President of the American Foreign Service Association, a union who represents USAID employees, said he and others gathered outside to thank you for their service. We appreciate everything you have done and all the victims you have brought in your country in your country. “
Its belongs to several groups that sue the Trump administration because of the staff cuts and freeze more than months after foreign support. While the efforts of the administration to reduce the size of the federal government are involved in different lawsuits, the judicial challenges to stop the closure of USAID have so far been unsuccessful.
In the delayed Wednesday, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked the order of a judge, who had given the Trump government a deadline for the publication of billions of dollars of foreign aid. Supreme judge John Roberts said that the order will remain in the queue until the High Court has the chance to better contain.
The court’s night intervention is a short-lived step because the judges take the case into account, but their ultimate determination could be decisive in the increasingly busy legal battles that play nationwide.
There was a decision by a federal judge who said that the government had not given any signs that its almost two -week -old arrangement had complied with the break of financing freezing. Trump held on his first day in an executive order in the foreign assistant.
In a report by the Congress Research Service this month, the approval of the congress must “abolish, move or consolidate USAID”. Republicans who have slim majorities in the house and the Senate have not achieved any setbacks against the acts of the government.
This includes 4,080 employees who work on vacation all over the world on Monday. This was done by a “reduction in strength”, which affects another 1,600 employees, said a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry.
It is unclear how many of the more than 5,600 USAID employees who were released in Washington or put on vacation. The agency’s website says that employees at other locations have the opportunity to collect their personal objects at a later date.
The democratic MP of Virginia, Gerald Connolly, said in a statement that the focus on USAID employees was “unjustified and unprecedented”.
Connolly, whose district comprises a considerable federal employee, said that they are part of the “world’s leading agency for foreign aid”, which saved “millions of human lives every year”.
___
Associated Press Writers Lindsay Whitehurst and Nathan Ellgren in Washington contributed.
