All USAID staff on administrative leave reinstated until Feb. 14

U.S. Agency for International Development staff have been given one week of reprieve after a federal court judge said he would block the agency from placing thousands on administrative leave at 11:59 pm on Friday as had been originally planned. “All USAID employees currently on administrative leave shall be reinstated until February 14, 2025 at 11:59 PM, and shall be given complete access to email, payment, and security notification systems until that date,” read an internal email obtained by Devex. On Friday night, some staff who had previously been locked out of their systems started to regain access to their accounts. Others — even by Saturday morning — remained locked out, and still hadn’t seen the message. The notice came amid a whirlwind of confusion, chaos, and upheaval, and at the same time that many staff were scrambling to figure out whether they needed to evacuate their posts across the world. “I’m among more than a dozen American families that are either on or planning obstetric medevac to deliver our babies,” said one USAID staffer based in Asia, who spoke at a virtual press conference on Friday morning. “It’s taken us three years of fertility treatment to conceive. Instead of nesting and preparing for their arrival, we are unsure if Secretary Rubio and President Trump are going to abandon us overseas or abandon us on American soil.” It was one story of many that illustrated what USAID’s more than 13,000-person workforce had been going through during the last three weeks. First, there was a foreign aid freeze, which President Donald Trump announced within hours of taking office Jan. 20. This was followed by a stop-work order, which put a pause on billions of dollars in foreign assistance across the world. And after that, there was an announcement that parts of USAID would be downsized and absorbed into the U.S. State Department, and others would be dissolved entirely. In the weeks between, there has been wave after wave of furloughs, layoffs, and administrative leaves, with USAID staffers locked out of their accounts with no notice. It culminated with the previously pulled USAID website being rebooted on Wednesday to announce nearly all direct hires would be placed on administrative leave by midnight three days later, and reports of USAID’s front office slashing the workforce to 95% of its original size. But on Friday, just before the administrative leave would have come into effect, a federal judge in Washington temporarily halted the rapid dismantling. Judge Carl Nichols said he would issue what he called a “very limited” temporary restraining order that night. After that court order, the internal notice said USAID employees will not be evacuated from their host countries before midnight on Feb. 14, and that “no additional employees shall be placed on administrative leave” until that date. “The ruling is a crucial first step in halting a reckless assault on USAID and in supporting the dedicated professionals who serve our country,” Tom Yazdgerdi, the president of the American Foreign Service Association — one of two unions that sued USAID, the State Department, and U.S. President Donald Trump — said in a statement. By Saturday morning, the letters spelling out the agency’s name at USAID’s Washington, D.C., headquarters had been taken down, and several bouquets of flowers lay by a handpainted tombstone. “RIP USAID,” the tombstone read. “1961-2025.” Black tape had covered another sign closer to the sidewalk, one that used to read “U.S. Agency for International Development.” But in a small act of resistance, someone pulled the tape from the agency’s name — if only for a little while longer.