A political row has erupted after President Donald Trump claimed Americans hit hard by Hurricane Helene lost emergency aid because it was spent on migrants. The White House quickly rejected the claim and accused Republicans of spreading "blatant lies" about disaster relief funding. US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on Wednesday that his agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), did not have enough money for the rest of the hurricane season. President Trump and his allies expressed anger that the agency had spent more than $640 million (£487 million) on housing migrants.
But officials noted that those funds approved by Congress are part of a program called FEMMA, which is entirely separate from disaster relief. With less than a month until the White House election, Trump and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris are neck and neck in a handful of swing states that could decide the election, including storm-hit North Carolina and Georgia. Hurricane Helen, the deadliest hurricane to hit the continental U.S. since Katrina in 2005, slammed into the Southeast last week, leaving at least 225 people dead and hundreds missing. President Trump and Vice President Harris have visited some of the affected states. Republicans have tried to link disaster relief to immigration -- an issue seen as an advantage for President Trump -- while spreading misinformation about how federal funds are being spent. At an event in Evans, Georgia, on Friday, Trump said without evidence that "a lot of money that was supposed to go to Georgia, North Carolina and all the other states is gone, it's already gone." "The people who came here illegally are gone, no one has ever experienced anything like this. It's a disgrace." FEMA received $640 million in funding from Congress last fiscal year to provide housing for immigrants applying for U.S. citizenship.
But the money came through Customs and Border Protection, the federal immigration agency. The money is issued through FEM's Shelter and Services Program (SSP) and is separate from the agency's roughly $20 billion disaster relief fund used to respond to hurricanes and other natural disasters. FEM's disaster relief budget for the current fiscal year expires at the end of September, and the agency is currently operating on contingency funding while Congress negotiates a new annual budget. The agency responded to Trump's claims with its own fact-checking page and a statement from the Department of Homeland Security. "This is false," FEM said in a statement. "No money will be subtracted from disaster relief needs." The agency said more than $45 million has been donated to communities affected by Hurricane Helen so far. Vice President Harris said Friday that FEMA has sent more than 11.5 million meals and 12.6 million liters of water since Hurricane Helen, adding that more than 5,600 federal employees are on the ground. But President Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., said that FEMA is "a big part of the effort." Meanwhile, critics of President Trump point out that during his presidency in 2019, $155 million from FEMA's operating budget was diverted to fund the deportation of migrants to Mexico.
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