'Least I can do': Supporters applaud as USAID employees given 15-minutes to clear out
Bouquets of flowers for employees stood nearby, alongside a sign reading, “You and your mission mattered!”
USAID employees clutching backpacks and wheeling suitcases full of their belongings trickled out of the now-shuttered agency's headquarters on Thursday morning after the Trump administration gave them 15 minutes to clear out.
Outside the building in downtown Washington, D.C., a line of demonstrators broke into applause and cheers as each employee left the building. Bouquets of flowers for employees stood nearby, alongside a sign reading, “You and your mission mattered!”
Samantha Power, USAID's former administrator, greeted and hugged supporters down the line before she disappeared through the doors of the agency.
"When we come in the building, there are DHS officers who escort us, even though we've been coming into this building for our entire career," said Caitlin Harwood, a laid off USAID employee, as she exited the building. "It feels a bit sterile, a bit cold and a bit unfair, like everything else happening."
The Trump administration said USAID employees would be allowed a designated 15-minute time slot to gather their things on Thursday and Friday, according to a notice posted to the USAID website. After passing through a security screening, employees would be escorted to their workspace by security guards, the notice said.
Demonstrators said they wanted USAID workers who they felt had been maligned by the Trump administration to know that their foreign aid work was appreciated.
"The least I can do is clap these people out as they're leaving, for everything they've done for their country," said Emily Blagg, a laid-off USAID workers who collected her belongings earlier and returned to the building to support her coworkers on Thursday. She held a sign reading, "USAID makes America stronger, safer, more prosperous."
"We're not here to protest. We're here to say thank you," said Randy Chester, a vice president of the American Foreign Service Association, a union that represents around 2,500 USAID employees. "It is really just an expression of gratitude and thanks – recognition for their years of service as public servants to the American people."
Weeks earlier, after President Donald Trump gave orders to dismantle the agency, security personnel closed down the headquarters in the Ronald Reagan Building, half a mile from the White House.
"It was very confusing and hectic," said Blagg, who moved her things out of the office at the time. "They were taking the photos down off the walls. Everyone didn't really know what was going on."
"It was just really sad to see the people that I work with, who are brilliant and care so much about the work they're doing and the people they're working with...to see everyone just be demoralized."
The main USAID entrance remained locked on Thursday and a black garbage bag covered the lettering above it. Its name on a sign next to the street out front was taped over with black tape.
A Wednesday night Supreme Court ruling put a damper on hopes that legal action would ultimately stop Trump's efforts to erase the agency in their tracks. John Roberts, the court's chief justice, lifted a deadline imposed by a federal judge for the administration to pay out contracts and grants issued by USAID.
Supporters outside the agency said their confidence that a court could save USAID was fading fast.
"I don't trust that their rulings will be complied with," said Marion Lauritzen, the wife of a retired 30-year Army member who stood outside the building holding a sign reading "Wreck USAID = Hurt U.S. + Help U.S. Enemies."
Bragg, who worked in the agency's global health bureau, said she fears the agency's elimination could have "really large consequences" for the spread "infectious disease outbreaks like Mpox or Ebola," as well as "impacts on individuals getting medications, family planning services."
Overall, USAID employees and their partners in the field "are motivated by a desire to make the world better and care about other people," Bragg said. "When we lose that ability to see another person and care about them, it's not a good sign for the state of the world."
As one of the first actions of his term, Trump paralyzed USAID – the world's largest foreign aid agency – with an executive order freezing all U.S. foreign aid. Then, as hundreds of employees were placed on leave, Elon Musk announced he had spent the weekend "feeding USAID into the woodchipper."
Musk, as head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, has become the behind Trump's unprecedented efforts to gut the federal workforce in recent weeks."There's no food aid. Things that people rely heavily on are suddenly taken from them," Harwood said.
"A lot of fallout will happen."