(UPDATE) WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump's administration presented on Thursday a plan to dramatically slash staffing worldwide for American aid projects as part of its dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAid), leaving fewer than 300 employees out of thousands.
This came as federal workers' associations filed a suit asking a federal court to stop the shutdown, arguing that Trump lacks the authority to shut down an agency enshrined in congressional legislation.
Two current agency employees and a former senior USAid official told the Associated Press (AP) of the administration's plan, which was presented to the agency's remaining senior officials on Thursday. They spoke on condition of anonymity due to a Trump administration order barring USAid staffers from talking to anyone outside their agency.
The plan would leave fewer than 300 staffers on the job out of what are currently 8,000 direct hires and contractors. They, along with an unknown number of 5,000 locally hired international staffers abroad, would run the few life-saving programs that the administration says it intends to keep going for the time being.
It was not immediately clear whether the reduction to 300 would be permanent or temporary, potentially allowing more workers to return after what the Trump administration says is a review of which aid and development programs it wants to resume.
The administration earlier this week gave almost all USAid personnel posted overseas 30 days, starting on Friday, to return to the US, with the government paying for their travel and moving costs.
Workers who choose to stay longer, unless they received a specific hardship waiver, might have to cover their own expenses, a notice on the USAid website said on Thursday night.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said during a trip to the Dominican Republic on Thursday that the US government would continue providing foreign aid.
"But it is going to be foreign aid that makes sense and is aligned with our national interest," he told reporters.
The Trump administration and billionaire ally Elon Musk, who is running a budget-cutting Department of Government Efficiency, have targeted USAid the hardest so far in an unprecedented challenge of the federal government and many of its programs.
Since Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration, a sweeping funding freeze has shut down most of the agency's programs worldwide, and almost all of its workers have been placed on administrative leave or furloughed.
Musk and Trump have spoken of eliminating USAid as an independent agency and moving surviving programs under the State Department.
Democratic lawmakers and others call the move illegal without congressional approval.
The same argument was made by the American Foreign Service Association and the American Federation of Government Employees in their lawsuit, which asks the federal court in Washington to compel the reopening of USAid's buildings, return its staffers to work and restore funding.
Government officials "failed to acknowledge the catastrophic consequences of their actions, both as they pertain to American workers, the lives of millions around the world, and to US national interests," the suit says.