The Trump administration put nearly all of USAID’s 4,700 full-time employees on paid administrative leave at midnight last night.

By 10 pm yesterday, employees began receiving form letters saying their last day will be April 24.

“To start sending these [letters] out at 10 p.m. on a Sunday night was horrendous,” a source told me. “I’ve been up the whole night refreshing email as I watch my colleagues get terminated.”

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The plan to reduce USAID to a skeleton crew was first announced on Feb. 4, but unions representing agency employees sued the government and challenged the administration’s moves to dismantle America’s aid agency, which supports development and humanitarian projects overseas.

But on Friday, that challenge was dealt a major blow when a federal judge allowed the Trump administration to proceed.

My story about all this, co-reported with Fatma Tanis, is up on NPR right now.

Here are some more details that didn’t make it into the story:

Terminated employees were told they were being released from their positions “because your competitive area is being eliminated.”

Reductions in force happened at USAID under the Reagan and Clinton administrations. But in those cases, workers had a year’s notice, there was a points system for who was released, employees could contest termination, and there were “generous payouts,” the source said.

“It’s not following the right procedure. April 24 is so soon.”

The terminated employees are all based in the U.S., and there will be a “voluntary” program for full-time employees stationed abroad to return to the United States, the memo announcing leave said.

As of Feb. 12, there were 1,425 USAID foreign service officers with 2,360 family members still stationed abroad.

It’s “going to be very very expensive to ship all their stuff back — if they even do it,” another source told me.

Reportedly, only seven foreign service officers took the “fork” offer to resign, offered by the Office of Personnel Management but widely thought to be overseen by Elon Musk.

This is an evolving story. I’ll keep updating as I hear news.

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Top image: A protester holds a sign reading, “USAID makes America GREAT.”