Experts on policing who were contracted by the U.S. government to help a crisis-racked Haiti take down heavily armed violent gangs are among the first casualties of a sweeping Trump administration 90-day freeze on almost all foreign aid around the world.

Several “subject matter experts” contracted under the Biden administration to help the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support mission and the Haiti National Police were notified by email Monday that they’ve been furloughed until further notice, several sources confirmed to the Miami Herald.

The furloughs are part of a sweeping series of layoffs that have started to hit both the United States Agency for International Development and the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, a State Department agency that helps professionalize and strengthen police operations around the world and assists efforts to combat narcotics trafficking.

In Colombia, one of the biggest U.S. counter-narcotics efforts, some 250 contractors with the bureau were laid off, one source said, citing information provided by the Colombian government. It is unclear how hard Haiti has been hit. Neither Haitian officials nor the State Department has provided details on the number of individuals who have been furloughed.

Bureau advisers have been used to help train a new specialized SWAT teams for the beleaguered police force, including providing weapons training. More recently, they’ve helped police and the Kenya-led mission in improving anti-gang operations as they struggle to stop the widespread attacks. Canada also had police advisers but they left after embassy reduced its staff in November. France’s police expert embedded with the Haiti National Police is, however, still in Haiti.

Ahead of the June deployment of the security mission, three companies— Universal Strategy Group, Inc., Celestar Holdings Corporation and Creative Corrections, LLC — recruited police advisers to help strengthen the response by providing technical assistance to the Haitian police on intelligence gathering, improving investigations, administration and other reforms.

One laid-off adviser was involved in helping the Haiti National Police establish a critical-command center. A recent job posting had pay listed as between $80,000 and $120,000 and required 12 to 18 years of U.S. law enforcement experience or U.S. military police. The Miami Herald has reached out to all three companies for comment.

“At this moment, in order to do a thorough review, all programs and grants without a waiver approved by the Secretary of State using foreign assistance funding are paused,” a State Department spokesperson. “Salaries and administrative expenses for programs with waivers and for U.S direct hires, personal services contractors, and locally employed staff are allowed to continue under waivers approved by the Secretary of State.”

The layoffs in Haiti come as Haitians once again found themselves on the run from armed gangs. Shortly after 7 a.m. on Monday, criminal armed groups launched coordinated attacks in the community of Kenscoff, moving on several fronts to take over several villages in the hills and mountains around Port-au-Prince. The bursts of automatic gunfire and torching of homes sent farmers, schoolchildren and mothers in several rural communities fleeing for their lives.

The siege in the area known for its micro-climate, pine trees and laid-back way of life sent panic all the way down the mountain to Pétion-Ville, the wealthy suburb that gangs have been trying to take control of since last year. The community, along with Kenscoff, remains one of the last bastions of the Haitian capital that gangs do not yet control.

The U.S. is the single largest donor of aid around the world, and the Trump administration’s freeze is affecting contractors globally. In Haiti, U.S. assistance represented 59.4% of all humanitarian aid last year, according to United Nations data. It pays for life-saving health programs including access to HIV/AIDS treatment, anti-corruption efforts, security assistance, reproductive programs and support for elections, which Washington has said is a priority.

Last year, armed gangs killed more than 5,600 people and tripled the number of displaced people forced to flee their homes, now numbering more than a million, the U.N. has said. Amid the ongoing gang violence, the aid suspension is likely to critically weaken the international mission to combat gangs and risks exacerbating a situation in which six million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, Haiti experts say.

“Even a three-month stop has very severe negative consequences around the world and in Haiti, for saving people’s lives and for preserving U.S. credibility, U.S. soft power,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, an expert on non-state armed groups around the world at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., and a close monitor of the security crisis in Haiti.

Felbab-Brown said that despite the challenges of the security response in Haiti, which so far has failed to stop the expansion of the gangs that now control more than 80% of the capital and the lower nearby Artibonite region, the U.S. experts, contracted through the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, have been “crucial for helping to strengthen, at least, the already weak capacities” of the Kenya-led mission.

“Of course, this all has profound implications for whether there will be funding,” she said, referring to the overall uncertainty about U.S. money for the mission, which amounted to more than $600 million under the Biden administration. “U.S. efforts to stabilize the situation in Haiti and reverse the power of the gangs are not just actions based on humanitarian considerations, although those should be profound because people are suffering so much. They have direct national security applications for the United States.”

Several of Haiti’s gangs, already trafficking in powerful military-grade weapons and high-caliber ammunition, are now showing signs of becoming involved in significant drug trafficking and are interacting with regional drug cartels, Felbab-Brown said.

“Allowing the establishment, essentially, in a country in the Caribbean, close to the United States, a crucial way station for access of contraband to Europe, to North America, as well as flows back to South America, would be highly detrimental to U.S. security,” she said. “So suspension of aid and or termination of aid, such as for international stabilization efforts, would have detrimental effects.”

In addition to the furloughs in Haiti, senior career officials with the U.S. Agency for International Development were also removed from their posts on Monday. They were placed on administrative leave, a former official with the agency confirmed to the Herald.

Trump touts foreign aid freeze

A critic of U.S. foreign aid spending, Trump issued his executive order on the aid freeze as part of a flurry of edicts he signed on his first day back in the White House last week. Days later, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a memo to provide guidance on the aid crackdown, pending a review by the State Department.

The memo, obtained by the Herald, said “effective immediately, no new obligations shall be made for foreign assistance” until the secretary makes a determination after a review. It also issued stop orders for all existing awards.

The goal is for the aid to align with Trump’s “America First policy,” and to make that it happens his administration has threatened disciplinary action for staff ignoring its orders.

“We get tired of giving massive amounts of money to countries that hate us, don’t we?” Trump told House Republicans on Monday in Doral as he touted the executive order and others in a speech.

As he was speaking, contractors in Haiti were trying to get over the shock of being laid off as police units were in the hills fighting to push back gangs.

Specialized police units and forces with the Kenya mission arrived in the afternoon and managed to push back gangs after several hours of intense fighting. Both the head of the police, Rameau Normil, and the commander of the Kenyan force, Godfrey Otunge, were on the scene as panicked residents sought help. Haiti National Police spokesman Michel-Ange Louis Jeune told the Herald that several gang members were killed.

Police confiscated 216 cartridges of ammunition of various calibers, dozens of tear gas grenades and two assault rifles, he added. With reports that gangs are planning another attack, police continue to patrol the area, Louis-Jeune said.

Concerns about U.S. help to fight gangs

The layoffs in Haiti have prompted concerns about the future of the Multinational Security Support mission, which has been authorized through October by the United Nations but continues to suffer from a lack of equipment, financing and boots on the ground.

The mission so far has landed 800 security personnel in Haiti, still way fewer than the 2,500 originally envisioned, and the mission still lacks equipment and financing. On Monday, the mission did get some good news: A C-130 military aircraft from the U.S. Defense Department landed in Haiti to provide the mission with food, which is expected to sustain it for a few months. However, another aircraft that was supposed to bring equipment for both the police and the mission did not arrive.

During his confirmation hearing this month, Rubio, a former senator from Florida, signaled support for the Kenyan mission in Haiti. Days later, Kenyan President William Ruto deployed an additional 217 police officers, despite uncertainty over the mission’s funding.

Ruto and Dominican Republic Foreign Minister Roberto Alvarez were among several leaders who spoke to Rubio on Monday, according to the State Department. Haiti came up in both conversations.

Confirming the talk, Ruto said on X that he had and Rubio discussed “a variety of issues of mutual concern for our two countries.”

“We also discussed the United Nations-led Multinational Security Support mission in Haiti and agreed on a joint strategy to ensure the mission serves its purpose,” the Kenyan president said.

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