By dissolving USAID — in clear disregard for the law and the Constitution — Trump has touched off a global humanitarian catastrophe.
- Originally established by Congress in 1961 — when John F. Kennedy was president — USAID is a vital humanitarian organization that provides life-saving food, medicine, and support to much of the rest of the world.
- But Trump has illegally ordered USAID workers to stop doing their jobs, frozen the agency's funding, and prepared to lay off or fire nearly all employees.
- With USAID in disarray, medical clinics, soup kitchens, refugee assistance programs, and countless other critical projects across the globe cannot operate.
- This is a humanitarian nightmare of Donald Trump's and Elon Musk's making in service of ideologically bizarre interests.
The Constitution is clear — Congress created USAID and only Congress can dismantle it. Not MAGA sycophant and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Not President Donald Trump. And definitely not the unelected Elon Musk.
Public Citizen is representing the American Foreign Service Association and American Federation of Government Employees in this case, with co-counsel at Democracy Forward.
Our lawsuit seeks a permanent injunction barring Trump, and State Department or Treasury Department officials, from taking any action to dissolve USAID absent congressional authorization. We are also seeking a temporary restraining order — mandating a reversal of the Trump regime's unlawful actions and a halt to any further steps to dissolve USAID — until the court has resolved our suit.
By the way, we have now filed five lawsuits against the Trump regime (and there are more to come). Here are the other four:
1. We've told you about the suit we filed, within moments of Trump being sworn in, challenging the secrecy and structure of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency that is being run by Elon Musk.
2. We also sued over the removal from publicly accessible government websites of a broad range of health-related data and other information used by health professionals to diagnose and treat patients.
3. We've been emailing you about the suit we filed earlier this week to block the illegal invasion of privacy being carried out by "DOGE" at the U.S. Treasury Department.
4. And, just this morning, we filed a lawsuit to block "DOGE" from improperly accessing private information at the Department of Education.
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For justice,
- Robert Weissman & Lisa Gilbert, Co-Presidents of Public Citizen
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