Marcy Hirsch Robinson has worked as a humanitarian aid worker for more than 20 years.

In that time, she's lived and worked in over 30 countries, like Haiti, the Democratic Republic

of Congo and Ukraine.

I like to say that I am a stubborn optimist.

I generally believe in the good of humans,

and it feels like my responsibility as a privileged American

to be able to contribute to people around the world in their darkest moments.

For the last three years, Marcy's been working for USAID, the U.S. agency that distributes foreign assistance around the world.

When did you get the sense that the new administration was looking to take sort of major actions against USAID?

So it became startlingly obvious on Friday, January 24th, that this was not business as usual, and that this transition from one

administration to the next was unlike anything that any of my colleagues who have been in

government for their entire careers had seen before.

And that's because on Friday, that was when we were told about

stop work orders that had been issued affecting 100% of USAID programs. It was not made clear to us

what that was or exactly how that would be implemented. We were just told that immediately all work had to stop.

The following Monday, dozens of senior officials with USAID were put on leave.

Many of my colleagues had expressed to me that they were feeling very anxious because they

understood that any moment they would receive them. colleagues had expressed to me that they were feeling very anxious because they understood

that any moment they would receive a stop work order themselves.

And the next day, they did.

At noon, on Tuesday, January 28th, hundreds of USAID contractors were laid off.

No one had any advanced notice that this was coming.

...