Five DOGE workers and Peter Marocco, the deputy acting head of the U.S. Agency for International Aid (USAID) who has overseen Trump’s attempts to gut the agency, tried to enter the USADF’s office in Washington on Wednesday but were “unable to access” it, the agency confirmed to The Hill.
The USADF is an independent agency, created in 1980, to support small enterprises and grassroots groups that serve marginalized populations and communities across Africa.
The agency says that between 2019 and 2023, it awarded more than $141 million in grants to more than 1,050 community enterprises in Africa, directly impacting 6.2 million people on the continent.
Democrats issued a letter on Feb. 24 arguing Trump does not have the authority to effectively shut down the congressionally authorized agency.
“Any attempt to unilaterally dismantle the USADF through executive action violates the law and exceeds the constitutional limits of executive authority,” they wrote.
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