Exclusive: Border Protection feds warned of possible unrest at headquarters over USAID firings

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials were warned Wednesday evening to take special security caution and keep “situational awareness” around their Washington headquarters in anticipation of protests as USAID workers fired by the Trump administration return to their offices to retrieve personal belongings the next two days.

In memos sent from their “Operations Watch” alert system and obtained by Just the News, CBP employees in Washington were told that on Thursday and Friday “USAID staff, who previously vacated their workspace, will be on site to retrieve their belongings” in the vicinity around the Ronald Reagan federal building in downtown Washington D.C. near the White House.

“There is a high probability of public gathering and First Amendment activities,” one of the alerts said. “Please maintain situational awareness throughout the building.

"CBP employees should be aware of these activities and uniformed employees should use good tactics and consider the use of cover shirts during transit portions in one out of controlled CBP spaces.”

Another alert stated: “Be aware of your surroundings tomorrow, especially in uniform … we anticipate a significant amount of media as well as the possibility of nefarious actors.”

Tensions have been high since President Donald Trump ordered thousands of USAID workers terminated as part of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) reorganization of the federal bureaucracy. Workers and their allies challenged their firings as well as the suspension of billions of dollars in foreign aid payments by the agency.

Late Wednesday, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts blocked a lower court’s order requiring Trump to resume the foreign aid payments.

The Reagan building has been as the center of some of the tensions in part because CPB immediately took over some of the office space vacated in it by USAID. Officials told Just the News the CPB Operations Watch alert was based on intelligence that liberal and pro-government protesters might show up Thursday and Friday near the building.