When President Donald Trump moved to shutter the U.S. Agency for International Development, most organizations were terrified.
It wasn’t clear whether speaking out against the administration would mean losing what little funding there was left — and day after day, many remained silent while the aid industry crumbled.
But by early February, a handful of those affected broke rank. And soon enough, what began as a handful of emergency filings spiraled into a web of legal tests against the administration’s foreign assistance agenda.