A political controversy has erupted after Donald Trump claimed Americans hit hard by Hurricane Helene are losing emergency relief money because it was spent on migrants.
The White House quickly denied the claims and accused Republicans of spreading “blatant lies” about funding for the disaster response.
On Wednesday, US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), which he oversees, is short of cash for the remainder of the hurricane season.
Trump and his allies expressed outrage that the agency had spent more than $640 million to provide housing for migrants.
But officials point out that this funding, authorized by Congress, is part of an entirely different program run by FEMA that is not related to disaster relief.
With less than a month to go until the White House election, Trump and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris are competing fiercely in several swing states, such as storm-ravaged North Carolina and Georgia, will decide the vote.
The most destructive storm on the US mainland since Katrina in 2005, Helene tore through the Southeast last week, killing at least 225 people and leaving hundreds more missing.
Both Trump and Vice President Harris have made trips to several affected states.
At an event in Evans, Georgia, on Friday, Trump said, without evidence, that: “A lot of the money should have gone to Georgia and should have gone to North Carolina and all these other places that are and have been. disappear. .
“It’s gone away for people coming into the country illegally and no one has ever seen anything like it. It’s a shame.”
FEMA has received funding from Congress — $640 million in the last fiscal year — to provide housing for immigrants applying for U.S. citizenship.
But the cash comes through the federal immigration agency, Customs and Border Protection.
The money is spent through FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program (SSP) and is separate from the agency’s nearly $20 billion Disaster Relief Fund, used for response. with storms and other natural disasters.
FEMA’s disaster relief budget for the year expired at the end of September, and the agency is now using temporary funding while Congress negotiates a new annual budget.
The agency responded to Trump’s statement with a dedicated fact-checking pageand a statement from the Department of Homeland Security.
“This is wrong,” FEMA said in a statement. “No funds were directed toward disaster response needs.”
To date, more than $45 million has been awarded to communities affected by Hurricane Helene, the agency said.
Vice President Harris said Friday that FEMA also transported more than 11.5 million meals and 12.6 million liters of water in the aftermath of Helene, adding that more than 5,600 federal employees were on hand at the scene.
But Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr, posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday that it was “crazy” that billions of dollars in foreign aid were being sent to Ukraine, instead of to American citizens. lost everything in the storm.
Meanwhile, Trump’s critics have pointed out that when he was president in 2019, $155 million was diverted from FEMA’s operating budget to fund the deportation of migrants to Mexico.
