As American citizens suffer the devastation from the natural disaster in western North Carolina, Florida, and other southeastern states, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced FEMA funds will not be sufficient to cover the hurricane season. One of the reasons for the shortfall may be that DHS has diverted funding from FEMA to aid and resettle noncitizens and to help fund foreign interests such as the war in Ukraine. FEMA’s rumor control page argues otherwise, stating the following:
“This is false. No money is being diverted from disaster response needs. FEMA’s disaster response efforts and individual assistance is funded through the Disaster Relief Fund, which is a dedicated fund for disaster efforts. Disaster Relief Fund money has not been diverted to other, non-disaster related efforts.”
FEMA’s claim may be accurate in the strictest sense of the word. However, it is easy to conclude that if the agency ultimately gets some finite sum of taxpayer funding, a chunk of that funding does not benefit American citizens in need. The fact that it is coming from the disaster aid bucket may be a distinction without much of a difference.
Either way, as Breanna Morello reported, about $640.9 million in FEMA funding is going toward noncitizens in FY2024 alone from the Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP). In FY2023, FEMA awarded almost $364 million to noncitizens. […]
— Read More: uncoverdc.com
