Special Report: USAID's Dismantling Leaves Local Residents in Limbo ...
... and struggling to figure out the next stages of their lives while grieving the loss of a career that many describe as a "calling."
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
Email Adele
At the beginning of January, they were “cautiously optimistic.”
By mid-January, their thinking had changed to, “This will be challenging, but doable.”
By the second to last week of January, they were preparing briefs to defend their work—to explain how it makes America stronger and safer—and they were hearing about colleagues getting furloughed, especially those working on projects related to climate change and gender issues.
And at the end of the month, they received emails, at odd times and with no consistency, directing them to stop work on all U.S. Agency for International Development projects by close of business and then informing them they—along with an estimated 51,946 Americans living in 39 states, according to website USAIDStopWork—were officially furloughed.
In addition to domestic jobs, this week’s USAID stop-work order will affect hundreds of thousands of jobs around the world and weaken America’s relationships with global partners, said multiple Fredericksburg-area staffers who spoke to the Advance. They asked that their names be withheld out of personal safety concerns.
“This is not just a series of layoffs—it’s the dismantling of a global industry,” said one of the staffers.
Suddenly, USAID’s overseas partners—usually nongovernmental organizations, nonprofit and for-profit contractors, universities, and sometimes foreign governments, according to a February 3 NPR article—are being told there is no more money for malaria pills, or for polio vaccinations, or for food in famine-struck areas, or for humanitarian aid in war-torn Gaza and Ukraine, or to fund education for women and girls in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
“I’ve been getting messages from our international partners, and there are expressions of sympathy but an undertone of, ‘I don’t know how this can be rebuilt,’” one of the staffers said.
USAID is an independent agency created in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy as an effort to “separate military and non-military assistance,” according to NPR. Its programs included economic investment, humanitarian aid, and disease and conflict prevention in 173 foreign countries.
The staffers said that to the general public—including members of their own family—foreign aid is often seen as “an abstraction.”
“It feels like foreign assistance is a niche that the general population is not aware of,” one said. “It’s an unpopular notion— ‘you’re giving the American taxpayer’s money away.’”
In fiscal year 2022, the U.S. distributed $70 billion in foreign assistance—about 1% of total federal funding.
According to a 2019 article published by the Brookings Institute, the U.S. provides more foreign assistance than any other country, but it gives less than the world’s other wealthiest countries relative to its gross national product.
Foreign aid has historically been supported by both Democratic and Republican politicians, with some of the most rapid increases in the amount given occurring during Republican administrations, according to the Brookings article. And only about 20% of assistance goes directly to foreign governments—most of it goes to nonprofit or “multilateral” organizations.
Aside from extending assistance, USAID has for decades played a crucial role as “a pillar of national security” — “the soft power branch” that the defense department relies on to maintain global stability, the staffers said.
“Partners would come to us saying, ‘We have this offer [from another country to fund a certain project] but we need something that’s better or safer,’” a staffer said. “If the U.S. is not engaging in these spaces, our adversaries will.”
Right now, the staffers are managing fears about the global ramifications of the attempts to shut down USAID with feelings of hurt and anger over how events proceeded this week.
They spoke of hearing from colleagues who were at the Ronald Reagan building—where the agency was headquartered—as pictures of USAID site visits were pulled from the walls, signs indicating the names of different departments and teams were taken down, and career workers were publicly escorted from their desks, seemingly in a way to cause maximum humiliation.
They have coworkers—some of them stationed overseas, as are about two-thirds of USAID staff—who have been locked out of their email systems and don’t know the status of their jobs. The agency announced this week that it would pull all staff posted overseas from their locations within 30 days, meaning families have to quickly arrange for somewhere to stay back in the U.S. and switch children to a new school in a different country midway through the year.
The staffers have been told that their health insurance will end and are scrambling to figure out how to maintain needed coverage, and whether they can apply for unemployment, and how long they can afford to be furloughed before they need to look for new jobs.
“It’s not long,” a staffer said.
They said it’s hard to carry out these “mundane” administrative tasks while also grieving the possible loss of careers they describe as callings. And they’re finding themselves also working to explain what is happening to the general public and to family members.
“You became the family spokesperson while also enduring it,” one staffer said. “I’m seeing a moment where people are realizing their vote [in the presidential election] has had a direct impact on people they love. I’ve been told, ‘I didn’t realize this is what I voted for.’”
When they’re asked what the public can do, they have one response—call and email Congress members.
“I’ve been filling people’s inboxes with my perceptions of all this,” a staffer said. “I just need someone to witness this. This is a historic event.”
Read more stories about the effects of recent executive actions on the local federal workforce here.
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The loss of international relationships is frightening
When I read this excellent (as always) reporting, there was one passage that I read which has stuck with me and despite humongous impacts -legal, political, diplomacy, literal life and death - and locally - faithful US citizens, working as employees of our nation - being treated as common criminals while being perp walked away from their desks at the whims of an unelected South African national and whatever metric he and his personally hired technocrats are using - legal or illegal.
With all of that, and yes, that's a lot - it's this passage which still gives me pause:
"In addition to domestic jobs, this week’s USAID stop-work order will affect hundreds of thousands of jobs around the world and weaken America’s relationships with global partners, said multiple Fredericksburg-area staffers who spoke to the Advance. They asked that their names be withheld out of personal safety concerns....."
Did you see it?
It's the final sentence. Not criminals, not "illegals", not anyone who did anything wrong.
In fact, the exact opposite. People who have dedicated their lives to serving us. The same as any policeman, fireman, soldier, or any other government employee. In any normal times, you would be celebrating them as the American ideal.
I still do. And damn anyone who doesn't.
But that last sentence. Our fellow Americans. Our neighbors...walk in fear for their personal safety.
Not from Hezbollah or Hamas. But from Republicans.
What does it say about anyone willing to be associated with such a party where your fellow citizens fear for themselves, their families, their homes - if they speak publicly against you?
How is your reign of terror any different from the Night Riders of old?
That's a question I'd like to see asked of these local Republicans.
I would imagine an openly gay black man who went to VMI would not have been supportive of the Klan and it's ideals back in the day. Nor more importantly, their tactics of retaliation and intimidation. How does it feel to be the face of the model iteration?
Is it okay. so long as you're not who it's pointed at?
Likewise, of Ms Durant or Mr. Kenney.
There were times when Catholics would have been the victim of such tactics, not active supporters. Yet here we are.
Cause I always thought it was the tactics that were used that were the problem, as much as who it was used against.
It's okay as long as it's not you?
How's that work exactly?
Your neighbors fear to openly speak to you. They've seen the power you as a group wield, and how mercilessly, irrationally, and unethically you wield it.
Is this really who you are? Not you're party, but you?
It doesn't happen without you. We all need to quit pretending otherwise. Ask Republicans where they stand - make them accountable.
No way they didn't know what they were getting when choose it.
And no way it goes away as long as they enable it.
They are accountable, bring it to light.
Because right now, good - lawful, hard-working Americans, your neighbors fear for their safety.
If we don't stand up for them now, then when?
If not us, then who?
Enough.