The government's primary foreign aid agency is doing its best.
Reports show that the US Organization for International Development (USAID) workforce has been reduced from over 10,000 employees to less than 300. Published on Wired,, Reuters,, New York Times and NPR.
The State Department declined to comment. Neither USAID nor the White House immediately responded to requests for comment from the hill.
Important personnel were to be notified by 3pm on Thursday, according to the message posted. On the USAID websiteOtherwise, last weekend, Elon Musk's Office of Government Efficiency (DOGE) began shutting down thousands of employees from internal systems, sparking confusion and concerns about the agency's future for over 60 years.
Congressional Democrats called the takeover illegal, unconstitutional, a coup, and vowed to be chosen by President Trump's State Department until the president retreated the threat of restructuring independent bodies.
However, the onslaught was quick.
Over the past week, staff have been locked out of accounts one by one, relying on Intel's elaborate signaling network and support.
“USAID is a very supportive organization. People are looking at each other,” one USAID employee said Thursday. “They put the organization and the people we serve on themselves. That's what I like to work there.”
The agency has recently been the subject of many attacks from the Trump administration and Musk, calling it the “ball of worms.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt blasted out some of USAID's “incomprehensible programs” this week. Notus was exposed on Wednesday.
Politico also had to publish a memo saying “To set the record straight” after fighting millions of dollars, including USAID.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, appointed as USAID's proxy administrator this week; He told reporters during his trip In the Dominican Republic on Thursday, the government said it was “not trying to destroy people's personal lives.”
“We're not punitive here, but this is the only way we've been able to get cooperation from USAID,” he said.
But as the drama unfolds, thousands of workers are kept in the dark, expressing their fears about their future and those they support.
And USAID employees, who say Congressional research services make up two-thirds of the workforce, face logistics nightmare.
“We now realize that we are stuck ourselves,” one USAID employee told Hill Hill on Wednesday, adding that “there is no clear way to get home.”
USAID says it will arrange and pay for a return trip to the United States within 30 days. But bringing back thousands of families might prove a big challenge, especially since many people cram their lives into challenges in these jobs and don't have a “home” to return to. It's not possible.
Employees called uncertainty “discomfort.”
“To say this is devastating is an understatement,” they said.
