The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is a statutorily mandated agency. First established through a delegation of congressional authority in 1961, the agency was cemented as an “independent entity” outside the State Department in 1998 when Congress passed the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act (FARRA).

But since he took office, President Trump has ruthlessly attempted to unilaterally dismantle USAID without congressional authorization. His Administration abruptly laid off or furloughed thousands of USAID employees and froze funding for USAID’s lifesaving programs. These actions have caused devastating humanitarian consequences and imperiled the United States’ national security interests.

Groups representing current and former USAID employees, as well as a non-profit that addresses urgent humanitarian needs, challenged the Administration’s actions in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. In April 2025, CAC filed an amicus brief urging the court to grant the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment and deny the government’s opposing motion. Our brief makes three principal points.

First, Congress has the sole authority to create, restructure, and abolish federal departments and agencies. The Constitution provides that “[a]ll legislative Powers,” including power over the existence of executive offices, “shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.” It also grants Congress the exclusive power to “carr[y] into Execution” not only the “foregoing Powers” but also “all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.”  The Supreme Court has held that these provisions authorize Congress to pass laws creating executive departments, agencies, and offices. Congress also has the power to restructure or abolish agencies as it finds necessary, and it has exercised this power since its earliest days.

Second, historical practice demonstrates that when Congress wants to give the President authority to reorganize the executive branch, it does so through legislation. From 1932 to 1984, Congress gave the President reorganization authority by passing and renewing a series of laws known as the Reorganization Acts. The history of these laws demonstrates that when Congress believes that delegating its reorganization power to the President will promote efficiency in government, it knows how to make such a delegation while at the same time limiting the scope of that delegation to protect against presidential overreach.

Third, USAID is a statutorily mandated agency, and President Trump does not have the power to abolish it unilaterally. The history of USAID itself is part and parcel of the story of the executive branch and Congress working together to restructure federal agencies while respecting their constitutional roles.

At the height of the Cold War, President Kennedy recognized the need to consolidate the federal government’s foreign aid apparatus to more effectively provide humanitarian assistance abroad and serve the United States’ national security interests. But recognizing that he could not undertake this restructuring unilaterally, he exercised his authority to “recommend” to Congress that it pass a law creating such an agency or delegating the authority to create it to him. That is precisely what Congress did.  Years later, President Carter also exercised his duly delegated authority to relocate USAID within the executive branch. And when Congress passed laws respecting the structure of USAID that President Clinton disfavored, he vetoed them, as the Constitution empowered him to do.

Finally, in 1998, when Congress passed FARRA, it mandated USAID’s existence as an independent entity after a sixty-day grace period during which President Clinton could lawfully abolish USAID pursuant to FARRA’s delegated authority. Clinton expressly declined to do so. Thus, when those sixty days passed, Congress alone retained the authority to abolish or restructure USAID through the lawmaking process. Without an act of Congress abolishing USAID or authorizing the President to do so, the Trump administration has no power to dismantle the agency.