CNN
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Approximately 2,000 employees at the US Agency for International Development will be laid off Sunday and a majority of the remaining full-time staff will be put on sweeping administrative leave overnight, workers were informed in an email.
“All USAID direct hire personnel, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and/or specially designated programs, will be placed on administrative leave globally,” read the email, sent to employees at 2:42 p.m. ET and obtained by CNN. The administrative leave goes into effect at 11:59 p.m. ET Sunday, according to the note.
“Concurrently, USAID is beginning to implement a Reduction-in-Force that will affect approximately 2,000 USAID personnel with duty stations in the United States,” the email continued.
Those affected “will receive specific notifications” on Sunday, the email said, and those who are designated as essential would be informed by 5 p.m. ET.
The move marks the latest in what has been a stunning decimation of the federal agency, which provides humanitarian assistance around the world.
CNN previously reported that after a federal judge on Friday dissolved a temporary restraining order blocking the government from putting on leave thousands of the agency’s employees, the Trump administration’s purge of the agency continued into the weekend.
Among those targeted earlier in the weekend were employees at USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, some of whom are tasked with responding on short notice to disasters worldwide.