WASHINGTON 鈥� Frustration boiled over Wednesday among supporters of the United States' lead aid agency at a Washington rally, and anxious aid workers abroad scrambled to pack up households after the Trump administration abruptly pulled almost all agency staffers off the job and out of the field.
The order issued Tuesday followed 2陆 weeks that have seen the Trump administration and teams led by billionaire ally Elon Musk dismantle much of the U.S. Agency for International Development, shutting down a six-decade mission intended to shore up U.S. security by educating children, fighting epidemics and advancing other development abroad.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is touring Central America on his first visit in office, defended the administration's broad shutdown of aid funding and other actions while saying, "Our preference would have been to do this in a more orderly fashion."
But, Rubio said, the administration faced a lack of cooperation in an attempt to review the worth of each agency program. He gave no evidence, and agency staffers deny his and Musk's claims of obstruction.
As a result, Rubio said, the administration would now "work from the bottom up" to determine which U.S. aid and development missions abroad were in the national interest and would be allowed to resume.
In Washington, Democratic lawmakers and hundreds of others rallied outside the Capitol to protest the fast-moving shutdown of an independent government agency.
"This is illegal and this is a coup," said Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif.
"We are witnessing in real time the most corrupt bargain in American history," Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen shouted to supporters at the rally, referring to Musk, his support for President Donald Trump and his role in challenging USAID and other targeted agencies.
"Lock him up!" members of the crowd chanted. Addressing Democratic lawmakers, who promised court battles and other efforts but have been unable to slow the assault on USAID, they said: "Do your job!"
Scott Paul, a director at the Oxfam American humanitarian nonprofit, said the damage already done meant key parts of the global aid and development system would have to be rebuilt "from scratch."
Jennifer Kates, senior vice president and director of the global health and HIV policy program at KFF, cited one large organization alone that expects to close up to 1,226 maternal and child-care clinics serving more than 630,000 women.
"The health care system is not one that you just press on and off," Kates said. If the U.S. shutdown lays off staffers and closes those clinics, "you can't just say, 'All right, we're ready to start again. Let's go.'"
USAID has been one of the agencies hardest hit as the new administration and Musk's budget-cutting team target federal programs they say are wasteful or not aligned with a conservative agenda.
U.S. embassies in many of the more than 100 countries where USAID operates convened emergency town hall meetings for the thousands of agency staffers and contractors looking for answers. Embassy officials said they were given no guidance on what to tell staffers, particularly local hires, about their employment status.
A USAID contractor posted in an often violent region of the Middle East said the shutdown placed the contractor and the contractor's family in danger because they were unable to reach the U.S. government for help if needed.
The contractor woke up one morning this week blocked from access to government email and other systems, and an emergency "panic button" app was wiped off the contractor's smartphone.
"You really do feel cut off from a lifeline," the contract staffer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of a Trump administration ban forbidding USAID workers from speaking to people outside their agency.
USAID staffers and families already faced wrenching decisions as the rumored order loomed, including whether to pull children out of school. Some gave away pets, fearing the administration would not give workers time to complete the paperwork to bring the animals with them.
Despite the administration's assurances that the U.S. government would bring the agency's workers safely home as ordered within 30 days, some feared being stranded and left to make their own way back.
Most agency spending was ordered frozen, and most workers at the Washington headquarters were taken off the job, making it unclear how the administration will manage and pay for the sudden relocation of thousands of staffers and their families.
The mass removal of thousands of staffers would doom billions of dollars in projects in about 120 countries, including security assistance for Ukraine and other countries, as well as development work for clean water, job training and education, including for schoolgirls under Taliban rule in Afghanistan.
The online notification to USAID workers and contractors said they would be off the job, effective just before midnight Friday, unless deemed essential. Direct hires of the agency overseas got 30 days to return home, the notice said.
Hundreds of millions of dollars of food and medication already delivered by U.S. companies are sitting in ports because of the shutdown.