Tuesday, March 11, 2025 - The UN migration agency, the International Organization for Migration, IOM, has laid off thousands of its employees as it gets hit hard by the US aid funding cuts.
The agency is reportedly battling claims from current and former staff
of now pandering to Washington and providing cover for mass deportations.
It has been reeling since the second return of US President Donald Trump
to the White House in January, pushing an anti-migrant agenda and immediately
freezing most US foreign aid funding.
“These funding cuts directly affect IOM’s ability to support some of the
world’s most vulnerable people. This would lead to more suffering, increased
migration, and greater insecurity,” an IOM spokesperson said
The United Nations agency, which at the end of last year employed around
22,000 people, has already laid off thousands.
It has also been accused of allowing its assisted voluntary return
programme to be used to blue wash or give a UN stamp of approval to Trump’s
mass deportation scheme.
Recall that the UN agency announced on February 1 that it was scaling up
its efforts across Latin America and the Caribbean to help migrants return
home, reintegrate and rebuild their lives.
It said it had resumed its assisted voluntary return programmes in
Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras, as well as Panama, which with Costa Rica has
reached an agreement to take in migrants from other countries deported by the
United States.
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