U.S. revokes grant for LGBTQ refugees in Zambia; judge halts Trump’s USAID job cuts
The imminent job cuts would cause ‘irreparable harm’, judge says.
The U.S. embassy in Zambia has revoked a promised grant for sheltering LGBTQI refugees, according to Melanie Nathan, the executive director of the African Human Rights Coalition (AHRC).
That move last week came while the Trump administration was making a massive cutback in U.S. support for foreign aid, which put a 90-day freeze on spending most of $40 billion appropriated for aid and reportedly includes plans to reduce the workforce of the nation’s foreign aid agency, USAID, from 10,000 to 280.
The fund cutbacks jeopardize millions of people’s lives worldwide, including the 20 million women, children and LGBTQ people receiving HIV-fighting antiretroviral medications that are funded via USAID.
Trump posted today about USAID on his Truth Social network, writing: “CLOSE IT DOWN!”
Also today, however, the Trump plan ran into some trouble. A judge in Washington, D.C., said he would temporarily reverse Trump officials’ orders putting 2,200 USAID workers on administrative leave and withdrawing almost all of the agency’s overseas workers within 30 days.
Judge Carl Nichols of the U.S. District Court, a 2019 Trump appointee, said he would also decide whether 500 USAID workers who are already on leave would be reinstated.
Meanwhile in Zambia, without the promised shelter, AHRC and a local partner organization are scrambling to serve LGBTQ refugees, who keep arriving.
“This leaves a larger group of the most vulnerable of LGBTQI refugees stranded,” Nathan said. “In the short terms, rooms have been provided in transit, and we are providing food. However the new shelter was part of a strategic plan that is now further impacted because of the suspension of USRAP [the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program] — the entire USA resettlement program has been suspended. New arrivals are homeless.”
The U.S. Embassy in Zambia had sought applications for grants of up to $25,000 “to address gaps in refugee assistance by issuing grants to local nonprofits.” AHRC and its local partner were awarded that grant — until the embassy reversed it last week “without discussion or consultation”.
Nathan has urged private donors to step up and save the program, such as five donations of $5,000 each. The link for donations is HERE.
CBS News published this report on the ruling by Judge Nichols:
Judge blocks Trump administration from placing 2,200 USAID employees on leave
By Jacob Rosen
Washington — A federal judge said Friday that he will prevent the Trump administration from placing 2,200 employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, on administrative leave, siding with unions representing the employees for now.
Judge Carl Nichols of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who President Trump named to the bench in 2019, said in court that he would approve a limited temporary restraining order that would block the employees from being put on administrative leave, a move that was set to take effect at midnight. He also said he would decide whether the 500 workers who are already on leave would be reinstated. Details on the pause would be set in a forthcoming filing, he said.
He said the unions — American Foreign Service Association and American Federation of Government Employees — established they would suffer “irreparable harm” without a pause, while the government did not. “Frankly, there is zero harm to the government” in a short-term pause, Nichols said from the bench.
At a hearing Friday afternoon, the plaintiffs asked the court to immediately pause evacuation orders given to USAID personnel in international postings, and for access to be restored to computers systems for people who are in the field across all parts of USAID and its contractors.
The government acknowledged that 2,200 USAID employees were set to be put on leave at midnight barring court action, not including the other 500 people who are already on leave prior to today. Six hundred and eleven essential personnel would stay on at USAID, and the government added that it has no plans to lower that number.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that the major reduction in force, evacuations and uprooting people from their jobs and homes were violations of the separation of powers and congressional appropriations. They said families are being separated, and children of USAID employees are being pulled out of schools across the world. Staffers have been cut off from access to health care, and many have to go back to states without housing or source of income, according to the unions.
“This is the full-scale gutting of virtually all of the personnel at an agency,” a lawyer for USAID employees said, adding it is “carnage” on ground for the USAID workforce and contractors.
Nichols pressed the government’s attorneys for a reason why Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is the acting head of USAID, needs to place the employees on leave Friday night. “I don’t believe Secretary Rubio needs to provide one,” one of the lawyers responded.
Nichols pushed the government lawyers to detail what “findings” they have that there is corruption and fraud in the agency, as is alleged by President Trump and his allies. The attorneys had no response. The judge also took issue with the government’s framing of Rubio being able to control USAID in his role as secretary of state, not as acting administrator, given that it is a separate agency.
Nichols decision to block the move to place the employees on leave came hours after workers were seen removing the signage at the USAID headquarters in downtown Washington.
