Melanie Nathan, JAN 28, 2025. Last night Trump issued an OPM that is probably illegal and is already causing damage to the most vulnerable of people. The Tump administration Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and Office of Personnel Management (OPM) went on a deadly memo blitz yesterday, sending at least three letters to federal agency leaders on directives stretching from return to office instructions to pausing federal grants. The fallout is overnight and massively injurious to the most vulnerable of people: Clinics that provide healthcare and HIV+ medications and services have closed overnight, leaving the most vulnerable populations in the lurch and in a state of panic. This extends to hundreds of thousands of people being locked out of their breadwinner jobs across the continent. And so much more. Here are two communications of the very many AHRC has received from communities to whom we provide services:


We are deeply disturbed by the lack of thought and basic care given to the short term and long term repercussions. The impact on HIV+ communities and the spread of HIV that will result is unquantifiable. Instead of continuing along the path of common goal to full eradication by 2034, and emulating former President Bush's policy that has saved over 25 million lives, President Donald Trump is facilitating a crisis of epic proportion that will no doubt land on our U.S. shores at great cost to health and life. We foresee a financial crisis resulting from the spread of HIV infection that will be way more costly than what he is purporting to try and save America at this time.
In addition to this the we are also reeling from the suspension of USRAP. LGBTQI+ people who are being resettled are now in limbo, cut off from transit center spaces and shelters which have time limits. We do not have enough funding to accommodate more people as this now backs up. LGBTQI+ people are more vulnerable than already vulnerable refugee populations because they are refugees in hostile host countries, which also criminalize them in the same way as their countries of origin do. It is now up to civil society to step in - and many of us do not have the funds needed to do this work. We will see lawsuits challenging this craziness, that will cost the Federal government money that could be used to provide this programing. While lawsuits make their way through our courts, the human toll will be huge. Let us hope the foreign governments such as EU and Canada step in quickly. How embarrassing for America! Please stay tuned.

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