- A fired USAID worker says security stopped him from taking one last photo of his wife’s office memorial.
- The Trump administration has dismantled USAID and fired most of its staff.
- Workers at the agency’s DC headquarters were given a short window of time to clear out their desks.
A recently fired USAID worker spoke to reporters on Thursday about the experience, saying he was stopped by security from taking one last photo of a memorial to his wife in the office.
In a video shared on X by NewsNation reporter Joe Khalil, former USAID employee Adam Tomasek said that during the abrupt exit, a Customs and Border Patrol security guard stopped him from taking a photo of his wife’s memorial in the office for the last time.
“My first wife passed away,” Tomasek told reporters outside of USAID headquarters. “She was honored on the memorial wall, she was a foreign service officer herself, so I wanted to take another photo to send her mother.”
Tomasek said he got into an argument with the officer, who refused to allow him to take a photo.
“I explained my story to him, and he said, ‘No, we have instructions,” Tomasek said. “You are not allowed. No photos, no videos.”
Workers at the US Agency for International Development were forced to clear out their offices this week after the Trump administration largely dismantled the foreign aid agency and terminated most of its staff.
Earlier this week, USAID workers received notices that they were being fired or placed on leave — including thousands who worked at USAID’s DC headquarters — and that the Trump administration was ending 90% of the agency’s contracts, the Associated Press reported.
USAID, which has funded humanitarian efforts around the world, was one of the first targets of the Trump administration’s expansive cost-cutting efforts.
The US channeled nearly $32.5 billion through the agency in 2024, providing aid to countries like Ukraine, Jordan, and Ethiopia. Still, foreign aid spending makes up less than 1% of the federal budget.
Elon Musk has called USAID a “criminal organization” and wrote on X on February 3 that he “spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.” Hours later, USAID workers were told to stay home from work, and within days, the agency announced that direct hire personnel would be placed on leave globally, with a few exceptions.
After federal workers’ unions sued over the dismantling of USAID, a federal judge granted the Trump administration a win on February 21, saying it could continue placing USAID workers on leave.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court issued a stay allowing Trump to continue his freeze on foreign aid money allocated by USAID.
Experts have warned that the shutdown of USAID is illegal, while others have argued that it could make China more powerful on the world stage.
Tomasek and a spokesperson for OPM did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
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