newsletter 03/26/25

Protecting Against DOGE’s Destruction

Late last week, ICAP challenged DOGE’s effort to dismantle the Inter-American Foundation (IAF), an independent agency that focuses on community-driven development across Latin America and the Caribbean that helps reduce mass migration.  We represent grantees that combat violence against women and in schools in Peru, teach small farmers sustainable agricultural techniques to help increase yields in El Salvador, extend credit to rural women in Mexico, and address internal displacement driven by criminal gangs in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, among other things.  Although the agency is small, its dismantling, if ignored, would allow the administration to violate separation-of-powers principles and congressional will:  the agency’s statutory authority makes clear that it “shall have perpetual succession unless sooner dissolved by Act of Congress.”  It has had broad bi-partisan support since its creation in 1969, including through congressional funding in the recently passed 2025 continuing resolution.

In an Executive Order signed on February 19, the administration specifically named IAF in a list of federal agencies that it deemed “unnecessary.”  Following the release of the Executive Order, DOGE has made swift and sweeping efforts to dismantle the Foundation, including firing the Board and President, canceling contracts and grants, and placing all employees on administrative leave with notice that they will be terminated in 30 days.  Without judicial intervention, the important work of IAF and its grantees will end.

Read more about this case here.