Reporters for Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America could be forced to return to repressive countries where their work puts them at risk of persecution and imprisonment following an executive order from President Donald Trump last week.

The order, which gutted the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the federal agency that oversees the three outlets, also endangers their journalists who are currently jailed in several countries. Their employers provided them and their families with financial support and publicly advocated for their release.

On Saturday, the agency notified RFE/RL and RFA — with budgets of roughly $142 million and $63 million, respectively — that it was terminating their federal grants and that any unobligated funds must be returned. Voice of America staff were told by email that they were on administrative leave, effective immediately.

Around 30 RFA employees risk having their visas revoked, leaving them in limbo, said Tamara Bralo, RFA’s director for journalist safety. This includes reporters living and working in the U.S. and abroad, including some whose home countries effectively view them as criminals.

“The possibility that people who worked for a U.S. Congress-funded organization are now at a risk of being sent to countries where they’re going to get arrested, I cannot tell you how disheartening it is,” she said. “They stood up to censorship in their countries at an incredible risk to themselves.”

The possibility that people who worked for a U.S. Congress-funded organization are now at a risk of being sent to countries where they’re going to get arrested, I cannot tell you how disheartening it is.

— RFA director for journalist safety Tamara Bralo

A journalist from Asia on an employment visa, who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the press, said he would leave the U.S. if his visa is revoked, but going home is not an option.

“By working for RFA we are effectively banished from going home,” he said. “These people decided to come and work for RFA because they believe in RFA’s mission. They believe in the idea of having freedom of press, and they desperately wanted to bring the idea of free and uncensored information to their home countries.”

The journalist said some of his colleagues had been blacklisted by their governments and labeled “enemies of the state” for supporting RFA’s mission. “If they have to return to their home country, there is a big, big chance that they will be put in jail.”

The media outlets were the only source of independent news in dozens of countries, often only accessible via VPN. RFE/RL and VOA are designated as “undesirable organizations” in Russia, making it illegal to interact with their content. And RFA, one of the first to report on the arbitrary detentions and mass-internment of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region in China, has been consistently blocked in China. RFA, RFE/RL and VOA together reached speakers of more than 60 languages, including Tibetan, Khmer, Kyrgyz and Pashto.

RFE/RL declined to comment on the risks its reporters now face but wrote in a lawsuit filed on Tuesday against the Agency for Global Media that reporters who are forced to return home “could be criminally prosecuted, imprisoned, or tortured because of their work for RFE/RL.” The government of the Czech Republic, where RFE/RL is headquartered, has been rallying European countries to step in and fill the gaps left by the U.S. funding cuts since the news broke.

ICIJ previously partnered with RFE on the 2024 Caspian Cabals investigation.

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In addition to reporters who may lose their visas, jailed journalists and their families could be left to fend for themselves once funding dries out. At least 9 journalists from RFE/RL, RFA and VOA are currently detained in Myanmar, Vietnam, Russia, Belarus and Azerbaijan, including Ihar Losik, who is being held incommunicado in Belarus as part of a 15-year prison sentence. The Washington Post has detailed some of the harsh conditions under which the journalists are being held.

“Being a regular prisoner is bad enough, but being a political prisoner is the worst,” the RFA journalist on an employment visa said, describing the inhumane conditions that some of his colleagues are experiencing, including being chained up and not receiving adequate food rations. “RFA supports their family, and through their family, supports them. So without the support, it would definitely impact their experience in jail massively.”

The funding cuts have gratified authoritarian governments, including China which has long seen the outlets’ coverage of human rights issues as a threat. On Sunday, an editorial in The Global Times, a mouthpiece for the Chinese Communist Party, called VOA “propaganda poison.” And since Trump’s order, the number of state-backed individuals attacking RFA journalists on social media has multiplied, according to Bralo.

Clayton Weimers, executive director of Reporters Without Borders USA, called the cuts “a massive win for authoritarian regimes.”

“Look at who is celebrating the loudest. It’s the Chinese Communist Party. It’s the Kremlin,” Weimers said. “They are thrilled to see that these independent journalists who were thorns in their sides for decades are no longer going to be doing their journalism.”

On Wednesday, Reporters Without Borders and 26 other press freedom organizations called on Congress to protect the Agency for Global Media and the affected reporters.

These are the latest in a slew of funding cuts that have endangered news organizations across the globe, including those that receive grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development. ICIJ does not receive funding from USAID or the Agency for Global Media, but it did receive assistance from the State Department which accounted for 6.2% of its expenses in 2024 and 8.6% of its budget in 2025.