USAID staffers turned away from offices even after court suspends leave order

WASHINGTON (AP) — Officials and federal officers turned away scores of U.S. Agency for International staffers who showed up for work Monday at its Washington headquarters, after a court temporarily blocked a Trump administration order that would have pulled all but a fraction of workers off the job worldwide.

A front desk officer told a steady stream of agency staffers — dressed in business clothes or USAID sweatshirts or T-shirts — that he had a list of no more than 10 names of people allowed to enter the building. Tarps hung over USAID's interior signs.

A man who earlier identified himself as a USAID official took a harsher tone, telling staffers “just go" and "why are you here?”

Co-workers embraced who had not seen each other since soon after President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, who runs a cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency, began dismantling USAID and its aid and development programs worldwide three weeks ago.

Even as Trump and Musk have taken aim at other government agencies, USAID has been hit hardest so far. The president signed an executive order freezing foreign assistance so the administration could review spending that it says is wasteful or not aligned with Trump's agenda.

That has forced U.S.-funded aid and development programs worldwide to shut down and lay off staff even as Secretary of State Marco Rubio had sought to mitigate the damage by issuing a waiver to exempt emergency food aid and “life-saving” programs.

Despite the waiver, aid groups say the government has not resumed payments. Norwegian Refugee Council, one of the largest humanitarian groups, called the U.S. cutoff the most devastating in its 79-year history and said Monday that it will have to suspend programs serving hundreds of thousands of people in 20 countries.

“The impact of this will be felt severely by the most vulnerable, from deeply neglected Burkina Faso, where we are the only organization supplying clean water to the 300,000 trapped in the blockaded city of Djibo, to war-torn Sudan, where we support nearly 500 bakeries in Darfur providing daily subsidized bread to hundreds of thousands of hunger-stricken people,” the group said in a statement.

In an interview aired Sunday with Fox News host Bret Baier ahead of the Super Bowl, Trump suggested that he might allow a handful of aid and development programs to resume under Rubio’s oversight.

“Let him take care of the few good ones,” Trump said. Aid organizations say the damage that has been done to programs would make it impossible to restart many operations without additional substantial investment.

A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked a Trump administration order that would have put thousands of USAID staffers on administrative leave that same day and given those abroad 30 days to get back to the United States at government expense.

The temporary restraining order came in a lawsuit by two groups representing federal workers, and another hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.

While the judge ordered the administration to restore agency email access for staffers, the order said nothing about reopening USAID headquarters. Some staffers and contractors reported having their agency email restored by Monday, while others said they did not.

Some staffers told The Associated Press that they came to the USAID offices because they were confused by conflicting agency emails and notices over the weekend about whether they should go in. Others expected they would be turned away but went anyway.

Some who asked to go retrieve belongings were denied entrance.

A USAID email sent Sunday night, saying it was “From the office of the administrator,” told employees that what it called “the former USAID headquarters” and other USAID offices in the Washington area were closed until further notice. It told workers to telework unless they are instructed otherwise.

Department of Homeland Security officers and civilians also blocked USAID staffers and Democratic lawmakers from entering the headquarters last week.