All USAID humanitarian work has effectively stopped, current and former officials say
Current and former U.S. Agency for International Development officials, speaking anonymously due to fear of retribution, blasted the Trump administration's gutting of the aid agency, saying it has left critical partners in the lurch and much of its staff in limbo overseas.
In addition to the humanitarian work that has halted, scores of career USAID workers living abroad are also seeing their lives turned upside down. Several officials were very emotional describing their current situations and uncertainty.
All USAID humanitarian work around the world has effectively stopped, these current and former officials said, despite the State Department saying there are waivers for lifesaving programs.
"Right now, there is no USAID humanitarian assistance happening," a current USAID official in the humanitarian division said. "There are waivers put in place by Secretary Rubio for emergency food assistance and a number of other sectors, but they are a fraud and a sham and intended to give the illusion of continuity, which is untrue."
The official also slammed the waiver as unclear and largely unactionable because staff has been furloughed, as Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency seized control of the agency.
"There is no staff left anymore to actually process waiver requests or to move money or to make awards or to do anything," that official added. "We've ceased to exist."
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday pushed back on nongovernmental organizations saying aid programs remained paused despite the waiver.
"I issued a blanket waiver that said if this is lifesaving programs, OK -- if it's providing food or medicine or anything that is saving lives and is immediate and urgent, you're not included in the freeze," he said. "I don't know how much more clear we can be than that.
"And I would say if some organization is receiving funds from the United States and does not know how to apply a waiver, then I have real questions about the competence of that organization, or I wonder whether they're deliberately sabotaging it for purposes of making a political point," Rubio added.
But the above USAID official pushed back, saying those sectors are "actually unable to access their lines of credit here in Washington, D.C., for money already obligated to, already contractually put forward by the U.S. government."
"And this is meaning [a] lack of provision of assistance," the official continued. "This is meaning staff layoffs, meaning absolute confusion and mayhem. Some may have some money to keep going for a little bit, but not for long."
Another former official who spoke with numerous USAID humanitarian partner organizations said, "Not one has received any funding since the stop-work order to continue work, even if theoretically that work is allowed to continue."
One current USAID official based in Asia is pregnant.
She broke down in tears on the call, explaining how she doesn't know what is going to happen to her family, worried that the administration is going to "abandon" her overseas or back in the U.S.
"I am among more than a dozen American families that are either on or planning obstetric medevac to deliver our babies. We have a nursery painted with a crib ready for our baby that has taken us three years of fertility treatments to conceive," the official based in Asia said, her voice cracking with emotion. "Instead of nesting and planning for their arrival, we are unsure if Secretary Rubio and President Trump are going to abandon us overseas or abandon us when we land on American soil. We have been told there is no money to assist USAID families that are awaiting the arrival of our infants with resettlement in the U.S."
"We have been using refugee resources from our churches and community groups that we usually use to help refugees from places like Syria and Afghanistan," the official added. "We are using these resources to figure out how to land as close to on our feet as possible. Unless the tide of public opinion shifts, each of these families are going to arrive homeless, jobless and insurance-less within a matter of days, or possibly even hours, of stepping foot on American soil."
The spouse of a current official in the Latin America region said their family does not have a home to return to in the U.S.
"My spouse has served in a war zone. We have school-aged children with typical challenges you would face in the U.S., but with not the resources you would have in the U.S., that we've had to manage, and we've been willing to move wherever is best for the agency," this official explained.
"We worked across administrations with programs changing, growing, shrinking, and it's a circumstance right now where we literally have focused our life on this USAID mission, and we do not have a home to go back to, which is quite typical of Foreign Service families, and we don't know how we're supposed to pick up and just leave," the official added.
"How do you leave when you have not just family, not just school-age kids -- you have pets, you have things, you don't have a home to go back to, and you have a mission that you believe in and that you've supported for decades?" the official said. "And it's just the rug pulled under you."
Rubio said this week it is "not our intention" to uproot USAID families abroad despite the agency issuing a 30-day mandate for their return.
