WASHINGTON (DC News Now) — As Amy Uccello prepared to return to work–after spending months caring for her newborn daughter–she received a termination letter.
“I was fired while on maternity leave… No cause, no severance and three days to use my health benefits for myself and newborn daughter,” Uccello told DC News Now Thursday.
Throughout her career, the longtime humanitarian worker with the United States Agency for International Development, and in the private sector, described shock when learning of mass layoffs within USAID.
When asked about how she weighs the news of personal job loss and that of her colleagues, Uccello said, “A lot has been shock and numbness, all stages of grief, but most certainly fear. Sleeplessness and fear. My husband and I have lived on shoestring budgets in our past. But, now we have someone who needs a roof over her head, who needs formula, who needs a doctor if she gets sick.”
The Trump administration said Tuesday that it is pulling almost all U.S. Agency for International Development workers off the job and out of the field worldwide, moving to all but end a six-decade mission to shore up American security by fighting starvation, funding education and working to end epidemics.
The administration notified USAID workers in emails and a notice posted online, the latest in a sudden dismantling of the aid agency by returning political appointees from President Donald Trump’s first term and billionaire Elon Musk’s government-efficiency teams who call much of the spending on programs overseas wasteful.
The Associated Press reported Thursday that the White House plans to lay off roughly 9,700 of the agency’s 10,000 employees.
Several Democratic lawmakers joined USAID workers to protest on Capitol Hill Wednesday, vowing to fight the Trump administration’s move in Congress and in the courts.
Uccello’s husband, and employee of a USAID contractor, Chris Feddersen said he expects to lose his job in the coming days, adding that the White House’s USAID shrinkage could hurt domestic perceptions about public service.
You are sending a signal that public service is no longer valued by the American government., and that’s a shame because I think that’s a very strong American value,” Feddersen said.
