FEMA lacks funds for hurricane relief after spending $1.4B on illegal immigrants in 2023, 2024

In the aftermath of the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) apparently doesn’t have enough money to do its job.

So says Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who made the shocking revelation to reporters this week.

Now critics are blasting the Biden-Harris administration because it used $1.4 billion of FEMA funds on housing and feeding illegal immigrants in 2023 and 2024, albeit from a separate account.

In August alone, DHS announced immediate spending of $380 million to supplement a previous expenditure of $259 million through April 2024 to feed and house illegal immigrants. 

In 2023, DHS said it spent $780 million on services for illegals, making a combined expenditure of $1.4 billion over the two years. 

On Sept. 26, Congress gave FEMA an additional $20 billion for disaster relief funding that gave the agency flexibility to draw on it immediately.  

That funding was part of a stopgap measure to keep the government funded before the election. 

“We are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have,” Mayorkas told reporters, according to the Associated Press. “We are expecting another hurricane hitting. FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season.” 

But people on the scene in North Carolina are complaining that FEMA is failing to meet the immediate needs of residents in that coastal southern state, devastated by the deluge of rain that fell as a result of the storm. 

“Text from a doctor friend whose family lives in a tiny mountain town north of Asheville that’s been destroyed by flooding: ‘People are getting insulin by donkey and FEMA’s response is $750 and wait for 3 weeks,’” wrote the Federalist’s Sean Davis on X. 

“How is this happening in America?” Davis asked. 

Some wonder if the money spent on immigrants could have been appropriated for disaster relief instead.

And lawmakers in Congress warned last week during the debate for the additional $20 billion in FEMA funding that the agency had been “robbing Peter to pay Paul” by diverting funds earmarked for next year to cover this year’s expenses. 

The agency clearly needed an additional $2 billion in funding for disaster relief to fill its deficit, reported Politico’s E&E News service, a number that tallies quite closely to what DHS has said it spent on illegal immigrants.  

“I would have thought that if you were going to do something, disaster funding would’ve been one of the starting points. I have no idea how they got to that,” Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nevada, told E&E News. Amodei is also chair of the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee. 

Other critics have pointed out that the September spending measure approved by Biden and Congress contained $2.4 billion in aid to Ukraine, which today would really help people in Asheville, North Carolina, who are lining up at a local sold-out Walmart for the chance to buy food and water. 

Others have blamed government corruption.  

“FEMA is a reflection of everything that is wrong with the federal government – incompetent and corrupt,” tweeted author John LeFevre. “There is no middle ground: You can either vote for more of this, or not.” 

LeFevre included a Daily Mail story detailing how FEMA officials stayed in $1,000 per night luxury hotels in Hawaii, while recovery efforts from wildfires were underway in Maui.