For Immediate Release
October 15, 2026
Press Contact: Communications & Outreach Director Nikki Gamer | gamer@afsa.org
Washington, D.C. – After dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and firing its 2,000 experienced Foreign Service professionals, the administration is looking for people who know how to manage foreign assistance and respond to humanitarian disasters.
It had them.
The State Department announced this week that it plans to seek that expertise through its Lateral Entry Pilot Program (LEPP), a congressionally mandated program that brings professionals into the Foreign Service at the mid-career level. Experienced USAID officers applying through it would have to pass the Foreign Service entrance exam to do work they spent years performing for the American people.
Dismantling USAID and then recruiting for foreign assistance expertise is like firing the fire department and posting a help-wanted ad for people who know how to hold a hose. The government had experienced professionals doing this work but chose to get rid of them.
AFSA has long opposed lateral entry programs because they undercut a career system in which officers develop expertise through successive assignments and compete for advancement. Bringing back USAID officers who already earned their place in that system is another matter. They should not be treated as newcomers to their own profession.
State should offer these officers a path back at grades that recognize their experience and prior service, without unnecessary entrance exams. Congress can help by passing the AFSA-supported PATH to the Foreign Service Act and Foreign Service Test-Free Reentry Act.
Taxpayers invested years in these officers’ training and service. State’s own hiring plans make the case for putting that investment back to work.
The American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) is the professional association and labor union of the men and women of the United States Foreign Service.