There’s still a long way to go, but USAID partners fighting to get paid notched a Supreme Court win yesterday.
Also in today’s edition: We have an exclusive look at a dramatic confrontation as DOGE and Acting Deputy USAID Administrator Peter Marocco failed to gain entry to a foundation’s office.
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Supremely relieved
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When U.S. District Court Judge Amir Ali ordered the Trump administration to pay nearly $2 billion to foreign aid organizations for work they’d already done, the administration promptly went to the Supreme Court to avoid an immediate payout.
The Supreme Court granted the government a temporary reprieve but yesterday, by a 5-4 margin, it ruled that the government does indeed need to pay, as it tossed the case back to the lower court. However, it did not specify when the money should be repaid, and it said that when Ali revisits the case, he should give “due regard for the feasibility of any compliance timelines.”
Conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh all dissented from the decision, stating that Ali had given the government “little time to try to obtain some review of what it regarded as a lawless order.”
But Ali and the plaintiffs pointed out that the government had weeks to comply with the temporary restraining order that lifted the blanket freeze on foreign aid — and failed to do so. To the contrary, the administration abruptly cut nearly 10,000 grants and contracts from both USAID and the U.S. State Department, gutting 90% of the former’s portfolio.
Plaintiffs in the case cheered the decision, while recognizing that the victory may be short-lived given the administration’s determination to do away with foreign aid, my colleague Elissa Miolene writes.
Ali has set another hearing for this afternoon as plaintiffs push to not just reverse the funding freeze, but void the nearly 10,000 terminations that have happened since.
Read: Supreme Court hands USAID partners a win
Ding dong DOGE
Just when you think things can’t get any more dramatic, they do.
Pete Marocco, the director of the State Department’s Office of Foreign Assistance and acting deputy administrator of USAID, is widely seen as the dominant force behind the agency’s dismantling. Yesterday, when he and a team from the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, tried to enter the office of the U.S. African Development Foundation, the tiny U.S. government entity fought back.
Marocco and the DOGE entourage repeatedly rang the office’s doorbell and knocked on its glass windows, Elissa reports. But USADF’s staff sat huddled out of sight within its walls — worried that if they let DOGE enter the office, they would seize access to the agency’s systems, fire the staff, and cancel USADF’s contracts and grants.
USADF provides funding to small- and medium-sized organizations, entrepreneurs, and businesses across Africa. It’s one of several that Trump attempted to dissolve through an executive order last month. On Feb. 19, the president declared that USADF, the Inter-American Foundation, and the U.S. Institute of Peace were “unnecessary,” directing all three to submit a report clarifying whether each agency was “statutorily required and to what extent” within 14 days.
USADF was preparing for reductions across its already small workforce, according to a memo seen by Elissa. But before its 14 days were up, USADF was told two DOGE engineers would be detailed to work at the agency to improve “government efficiency.”
“People are terrified,” says one official with knowledge of the situation. “And terrified that someone who really doesn’t know how these systems work could come and completely destroy the agency.”
Read: US African Development Foundation blocks DOGE, Pete Marocco from office
ICYMI: Trump to scrap US African Development Foundation, US Institute of Peace
… So you can’t just say ‘You’re fired’?
Another USAID-related lawsuit is winding its way through the courts — this one relating to the agency’s personal services contractors, or PSCs, the bulk of whom have been let go.
The Personal Services Contractor Association filed a lawsuit on Feb. 18 arguing that the termination of PSCs, who perform many of the same functions as direct-hire employees, is unconstitutional.
Yesterday, U.S. District Court Judge Carl Nichols delayed ruling on a temporary restraining order, saying he would hold another hearing either today or tomorrow.
Much of yesterday’s hearing focused on establishing the plaintiffs’ legal standing, the irreparable harm they would suffer, and how their case differs from the one brought by USAID employee unions, where Nichols sided with the government and denied a preliminary injunction to stop the mass firing of agency employees.
Carolyn Shapiro, the plaintiff’s lawyer, argued that the judge should come to a different conclusion in the PSC case, citing the imminent destruction of USAID and the unique avenues for legal recourse available to government employees compared to contractors.
Read: Judge delays ruling in case by USAID personal services contractors
ICYMI: Court says thousands of USAID staff can be put on leave, recalled
Bad-faith effort
Layoffs have become a routine occurrence for the entire ecosystem that relied on USAID — and not just employees and contractors who worked at the agency, but for the tens of thousands at organizations that received U.S. funding.
In one of the latest large-scale reductions, World Vision is preparing to lay off as many 3,000 workers worldwide, my colleague Colum Lynch reports. The move underscores the reality that even evangelical Christian aid groups — a core constituency supporting the Trump presidency — are not immune to the president’s foreign aid dismantling.
Edward Brown, vice president at World Vision, disclosed the layoff plans in a confidential meeting on Friday between representatives of mostly Christian faith-based aid groups and Marocco.
Colum reports that the meeting did not provide participants with clarity on the fate of U.S. funding to faith-based groups, but it did shed light on the direction of U.S. foreign aid policy going forward, according to two sources.
Marocco asked the participants to make the case for why the U.S. government should fund their charitable works, and encouraged them to consider philanthropic channels of funding, including their congregations and wealthy donors, according to one source.
“The president and American people no longer have an appetite for foreign aid,” Marocco told the gathering, according to the source.
But one Republican source tells Colum that the State Department has begun this week to rescind termination orders for some contracts with World Vision and other aid entities, raising the prospect that the number of layoffs could end up being considerably smaller.
Exclusive: World Vision braces for mass layoffs
Funding freeze fallout: Tracking furloughs, layoffs, and cuts
Can’t publish if you don’t fund
Another victim of dwindling aid funding around the world: Publish What You Fund’s 2026 Aid Transparency Index, which won’t be publishing due to budget cuts.
“This is not a trivial loss,” writes PWYF CEO Gary Forster in a Devex opinion piece, calling the index, which has been published every two years since 2012, “the single most powerful mechanism driving improvements in the quantity and quality of aid data.”
“The timing of this loss could not be worse,” he adds. “The role of aid transparency in countering misinformation has never been clearer — last month, billionaire Elon Musk misrepresented (or misunderstood?) figures showing how much USAID funding reaches intended recipients to justify his efforts to dissolve the agency. Aid data has since been used to set the record straight.”
Opinion: The 2026 Aid Transparency Index is canceled. Here’s what it means
Related: Aid Transparency Index canceled for 2026
In other news
At least four people were injured after a clash between refugees and police broke out at the Kakuma camp in Kenya over reduced food rations due to the U.S. aid funding freeze. [ABC News]
Azerbaijan’s government has ordered the International Committee of the Red Cross to shut down its offices in the country. [The Straits Times]
The United Nations has announced it plans to cut monthly food rations from $12.50 to $6 for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh beginning in April due to funding shortages. [Reuters]
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About the author
Anna Gawel
Anna Gawel is the Managing Editor of Devex. She previously worked as the managing editor of The Washington Diplomat, the flagship publication of D.C.’s diplomatic community. She’s had hundreds of articles published on world affairs, U.S. foreign policy, politics, security, trade, travel and the arts on topics ranging from the impact of State Department budget cuts to Caribbean efforts to fight climate change. She was also a broadcast producer and digital editor at WTOP News and host of the Global 360 podcast. She holds a journalism degree from the University of Maryland in College Park.
