From 10,000 to 290: Judge blocks Trump’s plan to put Usaid employees

A federal judge temporarily blocked the Plan of the US President, Donald Trumpto force thousands of employees of the United States Agency for International Development (Usaid, in English) to leave their positions with an administrative decline.

The order was going to take effect just before midnight and the NBC chain said the magistrate Carl Nicholsfrom the District Court for the Columbia district, made the decision after having heard the arguments of the Republican Administration and two representative groups of federal workers.

The government plan contemplated a decline for the 2,200 employees in the country and withdraw almost all workers abroad within 30 days.

Nearly 2,200 employees had received communication on the obligation to accept the administrative decline before 23:59 local time (04:59 GMT on Saturday), although 500, according to a lawyer from the Department of Justice in the Court, there were already taken.

The New York Times (NYT) newspaper had advanced that in compliance with the republican leader’s guideline, Usaid was going to drastically cut its troops to the point of eliminating almost all of its 10,000 employees and saving only 290 positions considered “”essential”

According to this information, a small number of those who are dedicated to health activities (77) and humanitarian assistance (78), while the offices of USAID Focusing direct aid to other countries, it was planned to be reduced to 12 people for Africa, 8 for Latin America and Caribbean and 21 for the Middle East and Asia.

The Secretary of State of the United States, Marco Rubio, on whom Usaid depends now by decision of Trump, had justified the layoffs not only for a matter of efficiency, but also as punishment to a movement of “”insubordination“Among the thousands of affected.

In an interview with the Fox chain this week, the head of American diplomacy said he had found that the employees of that agency were “totally reluctant to cooperate“, So there was”Another option“That to make decisions”drastic“To put the situation under control.

The Usaid eliminate plan in practice was consistent with Trump’s announcement to cut the country’s expenditure on international cooperation projects, both through USAID and UN agencies or other NGOs. This was a hard blow to cooperation in the world, because according to the United Nations United States is responsible for 47% of global spending on humanitarian assistance.

The layoffs were going to be very fast: those destined in the so -called foreign service were given 30 days to return to the United States, while interior employees were notified by a message on the organization’s website last Tuesday that their Low would be effective this Friday.