Forced to flee Congo, USAID workers lost everything. They’re suing Trump.

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Jan. 28 began as a normal day for “Marcus Doe,” an employee of the U.S. Agency for International Development stationed in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

He boarded a shuttle, bound for his desk at the U.S. Embassy in Kinshasa. His children got on their school bus heading a different direction.

Within hours, everything changed.

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Violent political demonstrations erupted and protesters attacked the U.S. Embassy. By the end of the day, most staff were told to evacuate.

But just how they would get back to the United States was unclear: The White House had frozen foreign aid spending about a week earlier and put senior USAID leaders on leave. The agency had stopped paying for employee travel.

Marcus began to feel “an intense sense of panic” that the U.S. government would abandon its workers in Kinshasa. When he finally made it to Washington after a harrowing journey by boat and plane, Marcus was put on administrative leave.

The account is one of more than a dozen from U.S. employees stationed overseas, along with others who work with USAID, included in a lawsuit filed Tuesday by unions representing USAID staff and U.S. Foreign Service officers. They are asking the court for a temporary restraining order directing the White House “to reverse these unlawful actions and to halt any further steps to dissolve the agency.”

The employees and others, who filed their accounts under penalty of perjury, were given pseudonyms to prevent government retaliation, said Lauren Bateman, an attorney representing the American Federation of Government Employees, one of the unions that brought the lawsuit.

“There’s a real fear of reprisal by the administration, and by people like Elon Musk who have specifically named individual federal employees online,” she said.

Earlier this month, Musk posted on X that he and his U.S. DOGE Service staff “spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.”

He and Trump have vowed to shut down USAID, a decades-old agency that provides humanitarian aid across the world. The Trump administration has fired, furloughed or placed on leave the vast majority of USAID staff.

Congressional Research Service data shows that more than 6,000 of USAID’s 10,000 employees are based overseas, The Washington Post has reported.

The USAID staffers in Kinshasa made it back to D.C., but they left behind everything from baby books and children’s favorite toys to vehicles and regular access to neonatal care, according to their sworn declarations. One family had to leave behind their dog.

They don’t know whether they will receive a paycheck or reimbursement, or whether they will even have a job now that they have been stranded in an oddly familiar land.

When the Kinshasa group arrived at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, “we did not know how long our Agency would exist,” Marcus wrote. (At the time of his testimony on Feb. 9, Marcus wrote that they had not received any of the payments.)

The pause on foreign aid complicated the entire evacuation. The federal employees wrote that they have spent thousands of dollars fleeing for their lives without knowing whether they will be reimbursed.

“Ruth Doe” wrote that she – a USAID health officer responsible for the management of about $60 million annually – and her spouse had 12½ hours to pack up their lives.

They evacuated early Jan. 29, the same day the U.S. Embassy in Congo increased the travel advisory level from 3 to 4, writing that no one should travel to the country due to “armed conflict, crime, civil unrest, kidnapping, and terrorism.”

Their small bags included essential documents – passports, birth certificates and marriage certificate – along with a couple of pieces of clothing including, crucially, winter jackets. It was sweltering in Congo when they left but wintry in Washington, where they landed about 20 hours later. They left all other assets behind, she wrote, including two vehicles.

That isn’t her biggest concern. Ruth is pregnant. She wrote that she was assured by the State Department that it would help her receive timely prenatal care, including her second-trimester scan. That hadn’t happened as of the time of the lawsuit’s filing, she wrote.

Ruth called five different obstetrics practices in the D.C. area, and the earliest appointment she could get was March 10, she wrote, “which is too late for a second-trimester scan.”

To get the care she needed, she paid out of pocket to fly elsewhere and arranged for a prenatal appointment through family contacts, Ruth wrote.

Those costs are adding up. In one week, Ruth wrote, she has paid $5,000 for necessities.

“Nathan Doe,” a USAID employee who was based in Kinshasa with his wife and their three young children, wrote that he already has accumulated $1,000 in hotel costs. He is a deputy office director for the agency, conducting budget planning and working with USAID staff in Washington to answer congressional inquiries.

Nathan wrote that he sent his family to Michigan to minimize costs. His children are asking him if he has a job. He doesn’t know how to respond.

He isn’t sleeping well and is mentally taxed: “I found myself reluctant to go outside and tried to distance myself from affiliation with USAID as I feared for my safety.”

The freeze has also affected those who work with the agency. “Ulysses Doe” is the chief executive of a business that primarily works with USAID partners.

“When USAID funding froze a few weeks ago, my clients were unable to pay me, in turn making me unable to meet my own expenses,” he wrote. He’s since had to lay off more than 30 consultants. “All of our contracts have been canceled and we do not anticipate receiving any new ones this month,” he said. “If this situation continues, my small business may no longer be able to operate.”

Many of the federal workers who fled Kinshasa still have their mind on work.

“Olivia Doe” has been a USAID employee in Kinshasa since 2023. She works on establishing direct lines of critical minerals, including cobalt, from Congo to the United States.

The country is home to 60 percent of the world’s cobalt. It is extracted through an under-regulated system of about 100,000 miners, who risk their lives to dig hundreds of feet underground with hand tools. The mineral is almost exclusively sent to China, where it is used to make batteries – including some that end up in Apple iPhones, according to an investigation by The Post.

Olivia wrote that her job was to help reduce the country’s dependence on China through increased trade with the United States.

“We have essentially ‘ghosted’ all of our partners and our reputation may forever be tarnished as a result,” she wrote, later adding: “China is ready to immediately jump in and take over.”

Like others, Olivia wrote that she was also on her way to work when her life turned upside down.

“Westerners and cars with diplomatic plates were being targeted” by protesters throwing rocks, she wrote.

About midday, they learned that the house of the USAID mission director in Kinshasa had been looted and videos of the ransacking began circulating on social media.

The unions’ lawsuit is still moving through the courts, and the future is unclear for most of the USAID employees and their families.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols – a Trump appointee – extended by one week a temporary ban on involuntary evacuations of USAID workers overseas in response to the legal challenge, The Post reported.

Nichols also told Justice Department employees to submit by Friday whether the government would pay for the employees’ other benefits, such as school or car payments, while they are on leave.

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