The Department of Homeland Security is pushing back against “a sorry attempt to push a false agenda” by Democrats claiming the Trump administration diverted funds from FEMA to ICE.
DHS spokesman Tyler Houlton slammed a claim by Sen. Jeff Merkley that $9.75 million in disaster funds earmarked for the Federal Emergency Management Agency was instead transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Under no circumstances was any disaster relief funding transferred from @fema to immigration enforcement efforts. This is a sorry attempt to push a false agenda at a time when the administration is focused on assisting millions on the East Coast facing a catastrophic disaster.
— Tyler Q. Houlton (@SpoxDHS) September 12, 2018
Democrats were quick to jump in and spread the story once Merkley released a document Tuesday accusing President Donald Trump’s administration of a nearly $10 million transfer of disaster relief, just as a potentially catastrophic hurricane is bearing down on the U.S. east coast.
Unbelievable? Yes. Reprehensible? Yes. But it’s true. Look for yourself: pic.twitter.com/O0SxI9p5ho
— Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) September 12, 2018
“This is a scandal,” the Oregon Democrat said in a statement provided to HuffPost. “At the start of hurricane season — when American citizens in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are still suffering from FEMA’s inadequate recovery efforts — the administration transferred millions of dollars away from FEMA. And for what? To implement their profoundly misguided ‘zero tolerance’ policy.”
But, as Houlton pointed out, the Department of Homeland Security document noted that disaster relief funding was not at stake but that the money was from the agency’s budgets for travel, training, public engagement and information technology work, CNN reported.
Funding would also be taken from other agencies within the Department of Homeland Security such as TSA and the Coast Guard.
“FEMA will curtail training, travel, public engagement sessions, IT security support and infrastructure maintenance, and IT investments in the legacy grants systems for transition to the Grants Management Modernization Program,” the document read.
The money in question — transferred to ICE from FEMA’s routine operating expenses — could not have been used for hurricane response due to appropriation limitations. DHS/FEMA stand fiscally and operationally ready to support current and future response and recovery needs.
— Tyler Q. Houlton (@SpoxDHS) September 12, 2018
Merkley, a vocal critic of the president, argued that the administration is taking money from “response and recovery” and “working hard to find funds for additional detention camps,” in an appearance on MSNBC’s “Rachel Maddow Show” on Tuesday.
As #HurricaneFlorence bears down, I discovered today that the Trump Administration is taking money away from @FEMA so that they can pay to put more asylum seekers in detention centers. This is a scandal. pic.twitter.com/XRj928RIaD
— Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) September 12, 2018
According to CNN:
The document shows the amount transferred from FEMA to ICE is a sliver of the agency’s budget.
The transfer from FEMA to ICE is less than 1% of FEMA’s overall budget. FEMA’s budget originally was $1.03 billion, and the amount transferred was about $9.755 million.
The document does confirm that the money would be spent on ICE’s detention facilities.
As Merkely was given the platform to push his narrative, liberals continued the mob attack against the administration over the detention and forced separation of illegal immigrant families, a sore spot for Democrats.
“This is yet another example of the Trump Administration’s outrageously misplaced homeland security priorities,” Democratic Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Homeland Security, said according to KHOU. “We have a president who cares more about locking up families seeking asylum and putting kids in cages than ensuring FEMA has every resource necessary to prepare for and respond to disasters.”
But a senior FEMA official pushed back against the alarm that FEMA would not be able to respond adequately to Hurricane Florence or others disasters.
“We have plenty of resources to respond. We have plenty of resources to recover,” Jeff Byard, FEMA’s associate administrator for response and recovery, said Wednesday, according to KHOU. “That has not impacted our situation whatsoever.”
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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida where she has been writing for the BizPacReview team since 2015.
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