Guest Editorial: USAID Employee Shares Experience of Last Year

When USAID Fell, I Stayed Silent. That’s Not the Example I Want to Set for My Son

BNB Note:

While politics is often analyzed from the outside, BNB’s Guest Editorial Series aims to flip that perspective by highlighting the firsthand experiences of those working inside the political and policy arena. This includes lawmakers crafting and ushering legislation, candidates navigating the campaign trail, career civil servants implementing public programs, and political operatives shaping strategy behind the scenes.

The goal is not to litigate every claim or endorse every position, but to provide readers with direct insight into how decisions are made, how institutions function, and how power operates in practice.

Below, is a guest editorial from Mahbub Sarwar, a former federal employee working for USAID before it was significantly dismantled last year by the Trump administration. Sarwar shares his experience at USAID and his reactions to the Trump administration’s decision to dramatically reduce the size and scope of USAID.

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“We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper. Could [have] gone to some great parties. Did that instead.” - [Elon Musk]

That was what the richest person in the world wrote about the Agency I was proud to serve on behalf of the American people. Today, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is mostly gone. Sure, some programs have been shifted to the State Department, and a few former colleagues remain, but the institution I knew has been dismantled. Its people scattered, its programs closed out, its purpose seen as expendable.

I could write about USAID’s value in an increasingly multipolar world, as well as its effectiveness in reducing poverty, saving lives, educating children, and fostering goodwill across the globe, but this post is not about that. It is about the year I lost the job I worked more than a decade to earn, and the deeper loss that came with it: the ability to do good on behalf of the country that gave me a place to call home.

I wasn’t born in the US. I came here as an immigrant when I was seven years old. We landed in the US around Christmas, and my younger self couldn’t comprehend how bright the city of Angels was at night. How can there be so much light when the sun had gone down hours ago? My parents, brother, and I immigrated to the US from Bangladesh (yes, the country Ravi Shankar and George Harrison held a worldwide concert for in MSG in 1971) and grew up living the American Dream. To this day, I am forever grateful and indebted to our country, this beautiful and diverse place that I sometimes don’t recognize.

Since I was young, I have always wanted to repay all of the opportunities I was given by someday serving my country. I got my chance when I landed an internship at USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA). OFDA was the team that rushed into disasters, saved lives, and rebuilt communities. During my time, they were still helping rebuild after the devastating effects of the earthquake in Haiti and responding to cyclones that were hitting Asia. From there, I bounced around as what is commonly known as an institutional contractor working for some funnily named companies, while sitting inside the Ronald Reagan Building in DC, working alongside other contractors and direct hires alike. I ultimately joined the Foreign Service with USAID a month before my wedding in 2022, and helped launch policy reforms, update strategies, and strengthen our communications efforts. Ironically, some of my biggest professional opportunities came under the first Trump Administration. The political leaders I worked with then had a clear plan to improve aid effectiveness. Coming from Bangladesh, I saw the corrosive effect of corruption and the increased use of predatory loans in our partner countries. I believed completely in former Administrator Mark Green’s mantra that foreign assistance should be a hand up, not a hand out.

USAID was never a charity. It was a strategic investment in stability, democracy, and American leadership. But again, this essay is not about those arguments. It is about what happened in 2025 and what I failed to do.

The order came in abruptly: pause all work and all payments until we could prove how our programs made Americans safer, stronger, and more prosperous. At USAID/Malawi, where my wife and I both served as officers with our newborn son, we complied. We drafted notices to partners, suspended activities, and waited for clarification. I believed that as long as the request was not illegal, we had a duty to follow it. That was my oath. We serve the United States, not a political party.

But the requests kept escalating. Program freezes turned into threats of forced evacuation. There was talk of flights out on military aircraft. Rumors that our phones and email would be shut off, cutting us off from the Embassy. We were told to wind down, pack up, and prepare to leave with little notice.

I kept waiting for someone in leadership to intervene. Senior leaders at USAID or the State Department. Congress. The Supreme Court. Anyone. I kept telling myself this could not actually happen. That our system of checks and balances would function. That someone would say enough.

No one did, and neither did I.

In June, we packed up our lives in Malawi, left behind the career we had built, and came home to be officially separated from the government. Half a year later, I still wake up some mornings thinking that there will be an announcement admitting this was all a big mistake, that USAID will be restored, that my badge will be given back to me.

I know that won’t happen, and the truth is that during that tumultuous time, my silence accomplished nothing.

I know why I stayed quiet. I was scared. I hoped more experienced leaders would step up. I trusted the system to correct itself. I believed that loyalty meant restraint, even when everything in my gut told me the policies we were executing were reckless, unpatriotic, and harmful to the very people we served.

But silence is its own decision. It signals consent to those issuing the orders, and it leaves the burden for speaking out to someone else who is just as afraid. My cowardice helped no one, least of all the colleagues who were looking for someone, anyone, to say this was wrong.

Losing my job has been difficult, but the hardest part has been losing who I was. Being a USAID Foreign Service Officer, a diplomat, was always something more than work. It was a purpose. I was in Malawi for only a year and a half, but in that time, I saw what American leadership could do. I attended school openings, tree plantings, and youth events where Malawians would smile when they heard I was with USAID. I met women entrepreneurs building the future of their local economies. I saw firsthand how PEPFAR and other U.S. investments increased Malawi’s life expectancy by nearly 20 years and helped achieve 95/95/95 HIV control. These were not abstract outcomes. They were people’s lives.

That is why I think about my silence so often now. I believed our institutions would hold. I believed others would intervene. But as I am learning, democracy does not sustain itself through hope alone. It requires ordinary people in unglamorous jobs to say no when the line is crossed.

I lost my career. I may never get it back. But I still believe in the country that welcomed a seven-year-old boy and allowed him to build a life in service. I still believe in the America whose lights dazzled me that first night we landed in LA. We are at a crossroads now, deciding what kind of nation we want to be and what kind of public servants we want to be.

If there is one thing I want my colleagues still in public service to hear, it is this: do not wait for someone else to speak first. Document everything. Question orders that violate policy or law. Tell the truth to the American people. You are not disloyal for upholding your oath. You are fulfilling it. Do not go gentle into the quiet night. While compliance feels safe in the moment, the cost will eventually catch up. Do not repeat my mistake. Speak up while you still can, and help keep America a nation we are all proud to serve.

My son is 20 months old now. He knows nothing of politics or of what happened to us in 2025. One day, I will tell him about it, and when I do, I want him to know I spoke up.