WASHINGTON (AN) — Mary Speck was working at her office at a congressional-funded think tank on a Friday afternoon in March when she heard a loud message.
"There was an address over the intercom saying: 'Lock yourselves in the office. Please stay in your office,'" said Speck, a senior advisor at the United States Institute of Peace. "It was a really bizarre situation."
As Speck listened to the message, officials from the new Department of Government Efficiency attempted to gain access through a back door to the U.S. Institute of Peace's elegant landmark building near the Potomac River.
Less than a month earlier, on Feb. 19, President Donald Trump targeted the institute in an executive order titled "Commencing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy." The order said the organization, created by legislation signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1984, must be "eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law."
Looking closely at the impact of Trump’s efforts to eviscerate the independent nonprofit institute, which was set up during the Cold War to resolve international conflict without violence, experts said it shows how he may be undercutting his own goals of stopping illegal migration.
DOGE failed to enter the building that Friday, but what soon followed was a takeover of the institution. On Mon., March 17, DOGE forced its way into the institute, according to reports, leading to standoffs between staff and police, removal of institute leadership and termination of some programs.
The DOGE takeover marked the beginning of a legal standoff that is ongoing. In a ruling on May 19, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell said the organization is an independent agency rather than an arm of the executive branch, and declared DOGE's actions "null and void."
Despite this legal victory, much of the institute's work remains halted, with no sign of when or if it will resume. For instance, in Guatemala, the institute received approval under the Biden administration for programs to reform the police and improve law enforcement's dialogue with communities. Trump's State Department cuts ended those programs. That undermines U.S. partnerships and stability in the region, according to Speck, and could have ripple effects that contradict the Trump administration's goal of curbing migration and crime south of the border.
"There were two programs that had just been approved with the Bureau of Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs at the State Department," said Speck, who oversees work in Central America, in an interview. "We were [going to be] helping with the police reform process, and we were going to a version of what we call Justice and Security Dialogues, which is bringing the community together with police."
Speck said the institute typically submitted project proposals to the State Department for funding. "Our work in Guatemala, in particular, depended on these agreements with the State Department," she said. "Those funds we no longer have access to, so we had to shut down those programs."
The institute's efforts were particularly important in Guatemala, a country that, according to Human Rights Watch, faces problems with "organized crime, drug trafficking, and institutional weaknesses in the justice system," along with "other significant challenges, including high levels of human trafficking, extortion, and violence against women."
Daniel Nuñez, an academic director at Diálogos, a Guatemala City-based research organization that has worked with USIP, said in an interview that its programs address this type of violence and make a positive impact in Guatemala by promoting data- and evidence-based approaches to violence prevention both at the local and national levels.
"In a country where trust in state institutions is extremely low and where the relationship between Indigenous communities and the state has often been violent, these efforts offer practical, evidence-based alternatives," he said. Guatemala relies on aid from the U.S. Institute of Peace’s programs, Nuñez pointed out, and the country may suffer without it.
"These are sometimes the only source of violence prevention and support that people have," he said.
Conditions that might 'exacerbate' crimes and violence
Guatemala’s instability not only presents challenges inside the country, it also has international implications, particularly for the United States. U.S.-supported programs like those led by the institute aimed to tackle some of the root causes of migration. By building trust between communities and police, the institute sought to reduce the likelihood that violence and a lack of economic opportunities would push people to migrate north.
Over the past decade, Guatemala became an increasingly significant source of immigration to the U.S. It also became a key corridor for the transit of both migrants and narcotics, according to Evan Ellis, a research professor of Latin American studies at the U.S. Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute.
On the campaign trail and in his second term, Trump has underscored his commitment to deter illegal immigration and secure the southern border. In early February, Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo appeared before reporters after a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Guatemala City to pledge a 40% increase in deportation flights from the U.S., including both Guatemalan deportees and other nationalities, and creation of a joint task force on border control and protection.
Experts warned against slashing U.S.-funded programs, however, particularly those aimed at violence prevention and community stability at a time when Guatemala must absorb deportees sent by Trump.
Guatemala is "going to have a whole bunch of returnees," said Christopher Hernandez-Roy, deputy director of the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a bipartisan policy research organization. "When you have a big hole in your violence prevention budget and suddenly you have a whole new influx of people who need to find work, those potentially could create conditions that might exacerbate the crime and violence problem in Guatemala."
This potential for more crime and instability, Speck said, could pressure more Guatemalans to leave their country and make it harder to take in deportees, precisely the outcome the Trump administration has sought to prevent.
Nuñez said the impact will run even deeper.
"DOGE’s attempted takeover of USIP will have serious impacts at the local and national levels," he said. "Many organizations such as Diálogos will have to adapt to the new context and look for alternative models of funding but other organizations are simply going to disappear. The NGO landscape is going to change significantly. This will translate into an absence of local support, training and preventive measures, particularly in remote areas and/or marginalized communities, which will most certainly fuel violence, distrust in state institutions and international migration."
In defense of Trump's policy, Hernandez-Roy and other experts said the U.S. cannot be expected to continue to indefinitely fund foreign aid programs, and that aid should be only temporary while countries quickly learn to be self-sufficient.
"You cannot provide foreign assistance for decades upon decades. … At some point, countries are supposed to wean themselves off international assistance," Hernandez-Roy said in an interview. "I'm not trying to suggest that the way this happened was the right way to do it, but there is an argument that if [an aid program] is in a country for 50 years, then there's something that's not right, because that assistance is supposed to allow the country to, at some point, stand on its own two feet."
While the loss of U.S. programs may frustrate Guatemalan officials, experts said it would likely not derail the bilateral relationship. Though some assistance may disappear, Washington's engagement in the region would not end but the nature of it likely would shift.
"The emphasis is that how the U.S. is going to engage with Guatemala is different," Hernandez-Roy said. "I'm sure that the Guatemalans lament the lack of some of the funding for certain programs. But the overall political and economic relationship is more important than that, and Guatemala will continue to be a regional ally of the United States."
For now, the institute’s Latin America team is on uncertain footing. The programs in Guatemala remain frozen. For those building partnerships on the ground, the consequences already are being felt.
"We’re losing a tool," Speck said. "We’ll only see the effect of that in the future."
