Left in the dark: The human toll of USAID's global recall of employees
By Sara Jerving // 05 February 2025
Emily, a career foreign service officer, and her partner are seven and a half months pregnant with a high-risk pregnancy. Over the past five days, they’ve been in the emergency room multiple times trying to manage the complications.
And then their world fell out from beneath them. On Tuesday, the Trump administration ordered nearly all of the United States Agency for International Development’s direct hires globally to be put on administrative leave.
For personnel abroad, the government is “preparing a plan” to return them to the U.S. within 30 days, as well as terminate the contracts of personal services contractors and institutional support contractors not deemed “essential.”
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About the author
Sara Jervingsarajerving
Sara Jerving is a Senior Reporter at Devex, where she covers global health. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, VICE News, and Bloomberg News among others. Sara holds a master's degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism where she was a Lorana Sullivan fellow. She was a finalist for One World Media's Digital Media Award in 2021; a finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists in 2018; and she was part of a VICE News Tonight on HBO team that received an Emmy nomination in 2018. She received the Philip Greer Memorial Award from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 2014.
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