Helping is Not Criminal

Despite the supposed waiver availability for “lifesaving”

Program in a refugee camp funded by US foreign aid
(BPRM)

support, very few waivers have come through the US State Department for foreign aid. 

Rubio has doubled down on how wasteful, unAmerican and terrible humanitarian and development aid is. The administration has issued bald faced lies about what is has been distributed. Over 100 USAID staffers have been sacked.

Thousands of staff members in humanitarian and development organizations were laid off this week. Program participants have been confused, scared, left without support instantly. It has honestly been one of the toughest weeks of my career.

Last night, staff members from the Department of Government Efficiency showed up at the USAID offices demanding physical access to computers and systems. These people do not have clearance, the mandate for DOGE is unclear, and they did not articulate purpose for why they showed up on a Saturday night. Security staff tried to stop them and were threatened with US Marshalls. They did the right thing- you never give access to someone without a clear business reason for the data and one government department does not have automatic access to another department. 

I had this experience once, where one department demanded my confidential data and went to my supervisor to have me punished when I told them no, it wasn’t their data. 

It was the right thing to do- protect sensitive data, people’s personally identifiable information on their confidential experiences, from people who don’t have a need to see it. In the security team’s case, it was also a legal obligation given the lack of clearance.

My supervisor backed me up.

The security team at USAID was placed on administrative leave immediately.

Elon Musk tweeted Saturday night “USAID is a criminal organization. It needs to die.”

Helping the most vulnerable is an American value, not a criminal act.

Calling the work we do “criminal” is heinous, and in the present environment, dangerous. Right wing sycophants are going to hear this and try to harm aid workers and aid funders. He’s threatening not only a legitimately established government office, he’s threatening the people who work for and contract with that department.

He’s threatening us because we want to offer mental health care to survivors of torture.

He’s threatening us because we want to offer health services to sexual assault survivors.

He’s threatening us because we want to teach sustainable farming practices to poor communities so they can feed themselves and earn an income, drill bore holes so people have access to clean water, to build schools so local communities can teach their children to read. 

The government took down the USAID website. Regardless of what Rubio is saying, they are demonstrating their intention to end all foreign aid.

To allow millions of people to suffer and hundreds of thousands of people to die.

To eliminate 50,000 plus jobs in the US and entire economies in the poorest countries in the world, 

This is a genocide of the vulnerable. 

Write your elected officials. Attend protests. Cut through the noise and chaos of the fury of all the vitriol shooting out of the administration at dizzying rates. Grab your issue and defend it. Keep speaking out. Don’t give up. 

People’s lives depend on it.