Create a program to staff hard-to-fill overseas positions

What has happened

1. Aug 28, 2026 Not started

   No program to staff hard-to-fill overseas positions was created at USAID or at the Department of State. Cluster negative search A, plus a targeted check: "hard-to-fill" returns 3 Federal Register documents for the window — an Economic Development Administration information collection, an Army science-and-technology personnel demonstration project and a USCIS H-1B rule — none of them about the Foreign Service or foreign assistance; the phrase appears nowhere in P.L. 119-75; and a grep of the ~68,000 URLs in `state.gov/sitemap.xml` finds one recruitment page (`state.gov/policy-issues/recruitment-and-retention/`) and no hard-to-fill program. The overseas positions themselves were eliminated: USAID's missions closed on 1 July 2025 and nearly all its personnel were subject to a reduction in force.

   • USAID notice, Freedom of Information Act "Still Interested" Inquiry — records "the ongoing reorganization of USAID operations in 2025, including the transition of certain foreign assistance functions to the Department of State and a reduction-in-force of nearly all USAID personnel"

     Primary Executive branch Sep 16, 2025