CEDA Denounces The Department of State’s Reduction In Force
Washington, D.C. – The Center for Engagement and Advocacy in the Americas (CEDA) strongly condemns the U.S. Department of State’s Reduction in Force (RIF), which decimates two of the Department’s most critical bureaus: the Bureaus of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) and the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM). This action undermines core U.S. foreign policy priorities and weakens the U.S.’s ability to respond to global humanitarian and human rights crises.
On Friday, July 11, the State Department sent layoff notices to over 1,300 employees as a part of the Trump Administration’s reorganization plan. A Congressional Notification sent to Congress in May 2025 detailed the plan and its devastating changes to DRL and PRM. In the case of DRL, the notification indicated that the bureau will be collapsed into just three offices tasked with advancing the Administration’s vision of “American and Western values.” This is a departure from DRL’s core mission to support democratic freedoms, promote human rights, and ensure foreign security forces are held accountable for human rights violations–all of which have been bipartisan priorities since the Bureau’s founding.
Similarly, PRM’s regional assistance offices, responsible for providing life-saving aid to people fleeing persecution, violence, and war worldwide, will be eliminated. The notification indicated that Migration and Refugee Assistance (MRA) account funds will be used to actively facilitate the “voluntary” return of migrants to their country of origin. Such returns cannot be considered “voluntary” in the absence of legal protection alternatives. This move directly undercuts PRM’s central mission of delivering principled, needs-based assistance to the world’s most vulnerable populations.
“Weakening U.S. human rights promotion and contracting the Department’s humanitarian assistance offices is not reform, it is retreat,” said Francisca Vigaud-Walsh, Director of Advocacy and Strategy at CEDA. “The RIF hinders the Department’s ability to function at a time of prevailing human rights violations and humanitarian crises. It strips away expertise and institutional memory, impairing mission-critical functions and putting countless lives at risk.”
CEDA calls on Congress to exercise oversight, demand transparency in the reorganization process, and ensure that any structural or budgetary changes do not further compromise America’s humanitarian leadership or global standing.
