Washington – The State Department notified the Congress of a Updated reorganization of the massive agency, proposing cuts to programs beyond what had previously been revealed by Secretary of State Frame Rubio and a reduction of the most pronounced staff of 18% in the United States.
The planned changes, detailed in a notification letter obtained by Associated Press, reflect the impulse of the Trump administration to remodel US diplomacy and climb the size of the federal government.
The proposal includes an even greater reduction of national personnel than 15% initially floated in April. The department also plans to eliminate some divisions in charge of the supervision of the participation of two decades in the United States in Afghanistan, including an office focused on resetting Afghan citizens who worked together with the US army.
The letter sent to the Congress by the State Department indicates that the reorganization will affect more than 300 offices and offices “to re -confocate on the central objectives of foreign policy and the needs of contemporary diplomacy.” The department says that it is eliminating the offices that it describes as an unclear or superimposed work and that Rubio “believes that modern effective diplomacy requires rationalizing this swollen bureaucracy.”
The document is clear that reorganization is also aimed at eliminating programs, particularly those related to refugees and immigration, as well as the promotion of human rights and democracy, that the Trump administration believes that they have become ideologically promoted in an incompatible way with their priorities and policies. He says, without evidence, that such offices “have proven to be prone to ideological capture and radicalism.”
Some of the offices that will be reduced include the Office of Global Women’s Affairs and the diversity and inclusion efforts of the State Department, which have been eliminated Trump under the entire government. The letter says that the Women’s Affairs Office is eliminating to “ensure that promoting the rights and empowerment of women is a priority in the entire scope of the diplomatic commitment of the department.”
The efforts to reduce the Afghan programs of the department received an immediate violent reaction from the veterans groups and the defenders who have spent the last three and a half years since the withdrawal of the United States of Afghanistan working to reset and integrate Afghans into life in the United States.
“This is not rationalization,” said Shawn Vandiver, a veteran of the Navy and head of #Afghanevac. “This is deliberate dismantling.”
The attention, which represents the coordinator of Afghan relocation efforts, was created in October 2021 after retirement. The office was designed to help Afghas, as interpreters that helped the United States army, which were eligible for resettlement in the United States due to their work by helping the United States during the war.
The notification of the State Department says that his work will be “realized” to the Office of Affairs of Afghanistan.
Over time, attention was accredited with the rationalization of visa and immigration processes that many people who helped Afghans and Iraqi, who benefited from similar resettlement programs, as they were too bureaucratic, opaque and left Afghans at risk that they expected too much in programs specifically aimed at helping them.
In December, the then President Joe Biden signed the National Defense Authorization Law, which included a provision authorized by the Attention Office for three years, but since President Donald Trump assumed the position, the concerns have raised over the future of the office.
“Eliminating it, without public explanation, transition planning or reaffirmation of the mission, is a deep betrayal of US values and promises,” Vandiver added.
