Progress

The letter sent to Congress by the State Department notes that the reorganization will affect more than 300 bureaus and offices, saying it’s eliminating divisions it describes as doing unclear or overlapping work and that Rubio believes “effective modern diplomacy requires streamlining this bloated bureaucracy.”

 

The document is clear that the reorganization is also intended to eliminate programs — particularly those related to refugees and immigration, as well as human rights and democracy promotion — that the Trump administration believes have become ideologically driven in a way that is incompatible with its priorities and policies.

 

“These offices, which have proven themselves prone to ideological capture and radicalism, will be either eliminated, with their statutory functions realigned elsewhere in the department, or restructured to better reflect their appropriate scope and the administration’s foreign policy priorities,” the notification says.

 

The reorganization notes USAID’s dismantlement and the shifting of some of its work to the State Department, particularly under a vastly restructured Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. PRM, as it is known, will have under its responsibility U.S. international disaster relief operations that had previously been tasked to USAID.