Trump Foreign Aid Freeze Halts DOJ Overseas Enforcement

President Donald Trump’s foreign aid freeze has suspended Justice Department overseas investigators from pursuing the same targets his administration says it prioritizes as top threats.

Hundreds of DOJ prosecutors, agents, contractors, and local staff targeting migrant smugglers, tracing the money flows of cartels and fentanyl traffickers, and identifying emerging terrorist threats have been ordered to stand down as a result of Trump’s 90-day global spending pause, said 10 current and former department employees.

This less-visible fallout from Trump’s executive order played out as newly installed senior Justice Department leader, Emil Bove, identified fentanyl, cartels, and other transnational crime as among the “most serious threats” DOJ must “eradicate” to fulfill policies Americans “elected President Trump to implement” in a letter to the DOJ workforce.

“Everything in that memo was what our overseas law enforcement assistance” is “being used for. That’s exactly the reason it exists,” said Robert Clifford, who left his post last year as DOJ’s mission adviser and country director in Ukraine. “You must go overseas in order to strike at the source.”

Clifford is among numerous past and present DOJ workers interviewed who said halting cross-border law enforcement collaboration abandons allies, stalls cases, and creates opportunities for Russia and China to expand their influence. They warn that even if the pause is lifted earlier than expected, it’s already created long-term national security risks due to the difficulties in rehiring laid off local support staff.

A DOJ spokesperson referred a request for comment to the State Department, which funds the majority of the impacted programs. A State media representative declined to comment, directing the inquiry back to DOJ.

Counterterrorism, Smuggling

Shortly after Trump signed the directive to reevaluate foreign aid, two offices within DOJ’s criminal division—the International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program and the Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance and Training—informed lawyers and investigators stationed in dozens of countries that they must cease all operations, said the 10 people briefed on the situation, most of whom spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation. That meant canceling flights and meetings, laying off translators and drivers, backing out of rental agreements, and sending contractors home.

One employee said he was sent home while being embedded with a counter-terrorism unit in a country facing an influx of ISIS and Al-Qaeda affiliates.

“We left without having the opportunity to say goodbye,” said the individual. “We have lost any ability to see what’s going on on the ground. Any of those groups could easily target the United States.”

Barbara Llanes, DOJ’s former resident legal adviser in Mexico City, said she’s been told by people in Mexico that the department’s contractors were “eliminated from one day to the next—attorneys who have worked with DOJ for years.”

“You’re generating bad will,” added Llanes. “Even though it’s a pause in theory, I think it’s more impactful than that because you are losing so much institutional knowledge and relationships.”

Bove’s Jan. 21 memo mentioned plans to leverage an existing task force that combats human smuggling and trafficking from Mexico and Central America. The foreign aid freeze means that task force can’t use DOJ’s overseas office and its contractors as a conduit to local law enforcement, said Llanes.

“It takes a long time to build those relationships and build that trust to the point that they’re willing to work with us and exchange sensitive information,” she said. “You could damage those relationships.”

Clifford recalled that during his tenure directing the FBI’s MS-13 National Gang Task Force, the two offices Trump’s order has halted once coordinated a single-day multi-country takedown of hundreds of gang members.

Those offices provide training that modernizes the policing and prosecuting techniques to the benefit of both the host countries and the US. DOJ employees’ mentoring also ensures that evidence is properly gathered to withstand suppression motions in US courts.

Trump’s action gives the State Department authority to grant waivers, but it’s unclear if urgent crises—such as Ukraine, where prosecutors are halted from helping investigate possible war crimes, including those involving US victims—could qualify.

Secretary of State Marcio Rubio has initiated a review of foreign assistance programs “to ensure they are efficient and consistent with US foreign policy under the America First agenda,” the State Department said Jan. 26.