A group of nongovernmental organizations, contractors and small businesses that rely on American foreign aid to carry out humanitarian and development programs abroad filed a lawsuit in federal court on Tuesday against the Trump administration and its efforts to phase out the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The plaintiffscharge that the Trump administration “violated the separation of powers” by withholding foreign aid funds that Congress appropriated and, in the process, put their companies, the livelihoods of their employees and the vast majority of their aid work in critical jeopardy.
“These programs cannot simply be restarted on command,” the lawsuit states. “U.S.A.I.D.’s partners are hemorrhaging resources and employees.” The suit adds that no provision of any appropriations bill or law “authorizes the president, secretary of state or U.S.A.I.D. administrator to impose a wholesale freeze or termination of appropriated foreign assistance funding.”
The Trump administration has argued that the agency wastes taxpayers’ money on costly and unfocused overseas programs that do little for the American people. Spokespeople for the White House, State Department and U.S.A.I.D. did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday’s lawsuit.
The suit seeks to overturn President Trump’s executive order pausing foreign aid for 90 days pending a review, as well as all subsequent memos and directives from State Department and U.S.A.I.D. officials to implement that order. It lists the specific hits that several of the companies involved in the suit have taken in recent weeks, including to lifesaving health and humanitarian aid programs, despite promises from the Trump administration to issue waivers to keep such programs functioning.
The lawsuit comes on the heels of another filed by unions representing U.S.A.I.D. employees. Last Friday, Judge Carl Nichols of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, a 2019 Trump appointee, issued a restraining order pausing the imminent administrative leave of 2,200 U.S.A.I.D. employees and a plan to withdraw nearly all of the agency’s overseas workers within 30 days. He also ordered the temporary reinstatement of 500 agency employees who had already been placed on administrative leave.
Like the U.S.A.I.D. employees, the contractors who sued on Tuesday charged that the Trump administration’s moves had caused them irreparable harm.
“Irreparable damage is also being done to the grantees, contractors and other partners who carry out these programs right now,” Tuesday’s lawsuit reads. “Without funding, these actors must lay off staff, cut ties with local actors and essentially terminate their operations. There is a serious risk that they simply will not exist if defendants ever decide to un-pause their work.”
The suit lists several specific firms and areas that have taken a hit.
Chemonics, a large, private development firm that has furloughed about two thirds of its U.S.-based staff in the last couple of weeks, reported having about $150 million in health commodities, including medicines, “stranded in warehouses around the world” and another $88.5 million worth in transit. All are at risk of spoilage or theft, the suit says. It also says that if Chemonics cannot deliver those supplies, what could result is more than 560,000 deaths from diseases like AIDS and malaria, and that 215,000 of those deaths would be among children.
HIAS, a group that provides humanitarian aid to refugees, reported having to lay off more than 500 international staff members and having “its work helping refugees across South America and Africa put on hold, including its work helping displaced children who are at high risk of trafficking, sexual exploitation, abuse and neglect,” according to the lawsuit.
The American Bar Association, which is also a party to the lawsuit, claimed that the administration’s orders had “decimated” programs to protect religious freedom in Asia, fight human trafficking in the Democratic Republic of Congo and help Ukraine recover from Russia’s invasion.
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