gotchanewsdaily.com 
CNN
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The Trump administration’s rapid moves to dismantle the US Agency for International Development have left thousands of workers scrambling to figure out what comes next and scores of those posted in dangerous hotspots around the world afraid for their safety.
CNN spoke with numerous USAID employees around the world who expressed shock as they brace for large swaths of the workforce to be put on leave on Friday night. Hundreds posted abroad have had their lives upended and are waiting for answers on when and how they will return to the US – a massive undertaking expected to cost US taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.
“We are all emotionally distraught,” one USAID diplomat posted overseas told CNN. “We feel like psychological warfare is being waged against us.”
“It’s beyond surreal. It feels like a cruel joke,” said another USAID official posted in a sensitive location. “I am US diplomat, here on a diplomatic passport, and yet I am now kicked off of all embassy systems designed to keep diplomats and their families safe?”
Over the last few days, thousands of contractors, including those who function as diplomats abroad, have been put on leave or locked out of critical agency systems.
On Tuesday evening, officials who are direct hires of the US government began receiving leave notice. Later that night, the agency informed its workforce that “all USAID direct hire personnel,” with a few exceptions, “will be placed on administrative leave globally” on Friday at 11:59 p.m.
The notice advised that USAID was “preparing a plan” to “arrange and pay for return travel to the United States within 30 days” for personnel posted abroad and provide for “the termination” of contractors who “are not determined to be essential.”
However, USAID officials, both contractors and direct hires, who spoke with CNN said they have received no communication from the agency about whether they will be among those keeping their jobs or how they will get home.
USAID employees, US embassies abroad, and even the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) – the labor union that represents foreign service officers – have not received official communication “about anything that’s happening,” in the words of Randy Chester, USAID vice president at AFSA.
AFSA is “pursuing legal avenues” to respond to the Trump moves, he told CNN and they are “working with other organizations and a few different firms to identify what those legal avenues are.”
Workers CNN spoke to said they’ve heard almost nothing from the government or the new acting leadership of USAID – Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Pete Marocco – since the cascade of changes, spurred by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, began less than two weeks ago.
Bringing workers home will cost millions
There are roughly 1,400 US direct hire employees abroad plus their families, Chester said. Bringing them home will be a significant undertaking that could cost US taxpayers millions, even as the Trump administration claims its controversial actions are grounded in efforts to save government money.
“We’re talking at least $20 million, if not more, to get all those folks back here to America,” he said. “The cost to the American taxpayer, it’s tremendous, and it’s unneeded.”
“There’s been no explanation as to how to make this happen,” he said.
CNN has reached out to the State Department and USAID for comment.
When officials lost access to their emails and USAID systems, they were no longer able to access the secure alert system that notifies them when there are security problems, demonstrations, or evacuations, sources told CNN.
Under that system, if there is an incident, “then you automatically have the embassy or consulate trigger accountability drills and duck and cover messages,” one USAID official posted in the Middle East explained. “Anybody who doesn’t have access to their work phone or to the work email or to any USG system would not hear about anything.”
“I cannot say for sure whether they [the embassy] are responsible for my safety and evacuation, if needed,” a USAID contractor posted in a dangerous location echoed.
“My scary panic button appears to be working, but I have not yet confirmed with security — the app is tied to my USAID email which is deactivated,” they told CNN, noting they have heard from colleagues in other hotspots that “theirs is not working.”
Sources have also expressed fears about the impact of Trump and Musk’s demonizing rhetoric against USAID and its employees.
“It is a shameful, vile, unprecedented way to treat public servants, whose safety is at stake following vicious, defamatory Musk statements,” one USAID official said.
More broadly, USAID officials around the world around the world are rushing to figure out their next steps.
Lives upended
The USAID official posted in the Middle East said they have an entire team working in one country in the region that “is sitting there with no clue where they’re going to be, or how they’re going to get home, or if they’re going to get home.”
USAID diplomats stationed abroad are often on yearslong postings, meaning their children would be enrolled in local schools or their spouses may have gotten local employment. But now everything is upended.
Shutting down programs takes time, “can’t just turn off the tap,” said one USAID official. “We have bills to pay, we have to do an orderly closeout.”
Administrative leave has never been used in this way before, Chester from AFSA told CNN, so USAID diplomats posted abroad do not know what will happen if they are among those put on leave Friday night.
“People are concerned that they could be summarily asked to leave their housing, because all of our housing is sponsored by the US government, and if we’re not allowed in government buildings, then by extension, people are wondering, are we allowed to stay in our house?”
For those who technically work as contractors abroad, the concern and confusion is equally as great.
“With my contracting arrangement, I’m responsible for paying my hotel bill (at a hotel I am obliged to stay at) and expenses and seeking reimbursement and per diem thereafter — due to the uncertainty around my contract status, I am unsure if and how I will be able to seek reimbursement,” the USAID official in a dangerous location said. “I’m weighing checking out and sleeping on a colleague’s hotel couch just in case.”
The actual details of how to get people home are also still being worked out.
AFSA’s Chester said Wednesday that “nobody’s got operational details yet, because the folks who do all this arranging and missions, they don’t know what to do yet.”
“Every (diplomatic) mission has a certain amount of budget that they get from headquarters to spend on these things, and since this was unplanned, no one’s clear on where the money is actually going to come from and how it’s going to be paid for,” he explained. “It’s really hard to start buying plane tickets and arranging for good transportation when you’re not sure where the money is.”
