According to an internal email sent to employees on Tuesday evening, "all direct hire employees" of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) "will be placed on administrative leave globally, with the exception of designated staff responsible for critical functions, core leadership, and special programs" on Friday, February 7, Wired reports, citing the document, UNN writes.
Details
The email noted that USAID "would arrange and pay for return travel to the United States within 30 days" for overseas workers, and that it would consider travel extensions on a case-by-case basis.
As the publication points out, as Elon Musk's DOGE team continues its efforts to dismantle the US government's main foreign aid distribution agency, its overseas employees are stuck in limbo. USAID employees are working in dozens of different countries around the world, but reports from ABC and CBS News indicate that most of them will soon be called back to the United States.
Both in the United States and abroad, access to the email and systems of some USAID employees was suddenly cut off, making it difficult to obtain official information about what might happen next, the newspaper writes.
On Tuesday afternoon, USAID employees who were still connected to their email accounts received a message saying that the agency's Washington headquarters would be closed for the rest of the week, according to a copy of the message reviewed by Wired. Some received a memo from Pete Marocco, the State Department’s newly appointed foreign assistance director tapped to oversee USAID, indicating that they had been placed on administrative leave "until otherwise notified."
Addendum
About 10,000 people work for USAID, about two-thirds of whom work abroad, according to the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan research group that serves Congress (the figure does not include "institutional support" contractors). The agency has more than 60 regional and national offices and is allocated less than 1 percent of the total US federal budget, the publication writes.
US President Donald Trump froze all US foreign aid shortly after he took office last month. But a number of exceptions were made.