It’s the end of an era for USAID foreign service officers and their colleagues from the host countries who worked alongside them.
In the wake of the Trump administration’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the agency’s career diplomats have been ordered to return to the United States, with their families, by Aug. 15th — with some ordered to leave sooner than that.
For many, this is an uprooting of the lives they’ve built abroad and a feeling of abandoning the communities they’ve served — after the Trump administration slashed the majority of USAID’s global programming, much of which saved lives. USAID’s entire workforce has been fired, the agency has been dismantled, and the State Department will absorb its remaining programs.
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.
