Scoop: USAID missions ‘urgently’ required to tally number of US staff

USAID mission directors around the world are being asked to provide the total number of American staff members in their offices — a request that comes after thousands of USAID staff have been fired, suspended, and locked out of their accounts. The email came from Erin Braxton, a special assistant at USAID’s Office of the Administrator. Braxton deemed the task an “urgent request” on behalf of USAID’s front office, which is currently being run by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “Kindly ensure that these figures are accurate and correct,” Braxton wrote in the email, which was seen exclusively by Devex on Tuesday morning. Braxton also asked for mission directors to count the number of dependents and family members associated with USAID staff members at each post. The email was two sentences long and did not include any information about why these numbers were being collected or what they would be used for. “It’s just crazy that they are operating without sharing any information about what they’re trying to accomplish except from what we see in Elon Musk’s tweets,” said one former mission director, who led staff across Asia and Africa until 2022. “People are under a siege mentality.” For many, the ask is a sign of further deterioration across the already battered agency, and further slashes in the workforce to come. One current USAID staffer referred to the move as a “pre-emptive gutting of USAID’s ground presence while defying Congress,” while another said removing staff members from their bases would pull kids out of school and leave projects with no one to monitor them. “Back in the day, we could call our bureau and say: What are we doing this exercise for? And someone would tell you, and you would do it,” the former mission director added. “Now, people are afraid to communicate [with the front office].” On Monday, Rubio told Congress that the State Department is reviewing USAID’s operations with the ultimate aim of reorganizing and absorbing “certain bureaus, offices, and missions,” and that “the remainder of the Agency may be abolished consistent with applicable law.” “This review and potential reorganization will substantially further the foreign relations of the United States, and may include, among other things, the suspension or elimination of programs, projects or activities,” Rubio wrote. Neither USAID nor Braxton could be reached for comment in time for publication.