FEMA rebuts Republican claims on disaster spending

By Andres Picon | 10/04/2024 04:15 PM EDT

The agency said misinformation about disaster funds going to migrants is complicating hurricane recovery efforts.

Former President Donald Trump

Former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Saginaw, Michigan, on Thursday. He and other Republicans claim that disaster funding was instead being spent on migrants. Alex Brandon/AP

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is scrambling this week to assess damage from Hurricane Helene, register victims for disaster assistance — and push back on new claims from Republicans.

Amid the rush to support communities ravaged by the storm, the agency has updated its longstanding “rumor response” webpage to set the record straight on misinformation that conservative media outlets, Republican lawmakers and former President Donald Trump have spread this week about how the agency administers its disaster funds.

The latest rumor, now rampant on social media, incorrectly alleges that FEMA is running out of money to support disaster recovery in areas impacted by Hurricane Helene — a swath of mostly Republican-led states — because the agency diverted hundreds of millions of dollars to organizations that provide humanitarian services to undocumented migrants.

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FEMA officials say the claim is false and reminiscent of conspiracy theories that have followed other major disasters in recent years. They’re concerned that the rumors could hamper efforts to register people for disaster assistance in the wake of the deadly storm, which left more than 1 million people without power.

The misinformation could also have implications for the November elections. Republicans have deployed the rumor this week as a double-barreled attack on the Biden administration just one month before Americans are slated to hit the polls, simultaneously hammering the administration’s response to the hurricane and its approach to the immigration crisis.

“The Harris-Biden administration says they don’t have any money.” Trump said at a campaign rally Thursday in Saginaw, Michigan, “They stole the FEMA money just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season.”

Republicans, and in turn conservative outlets such as Fox News and Breitbart, have inaccurately blamed the Department of Homeland Security’s $650 million Shelter and Services Program for draining FEMA’s disaster relief fund.

Volunteers stage water for people in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
Volunteers stage water for people in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on Monday in Asheville, North Carolina. | Mike Stewart/AP

While FEMA, an agency under DHS, does partner with Customs and Border Protection to administer the program to help migrants after they’ve been released by DHS, it does not use any money from its disaster fund for migrant services.

Jaclyn Rothenberg, a FEMA spokesperson, said in a brief interview Friday that “the money in the disaster relief fund is in no way, shape or form being diverted to help another cause. That is false.”

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — whom House Republicans impeached earlier this year — confirmed this week that since Congress passed a funding extension last month, FEMA has more than $20 billion to use for disaster relief.

He noted that while Congress may have to appropriate new disaster funding before the end of the hurricane season in November, the agency has the resources it currently needs.

Republicans last month cast all 82 of the votes against a stopgap government funding bill that also allowed FEMA to access the funds it is currently using to support its disaster response efforts.

‘This misinformation is just distracting’

The rumor is just one in a swirl of unfounded allegations about FEMA’s response to Hurricane Helene.

Numerous Republicans have suggested that FEMA does not have enough money to support disaster victims because the Biden administration provided billions of dollars to Ukraine earlier this year. Some leftist groups have complained that FEMA is facing a looming funding shortfall after the administration sent billions to Israel.

“Instead of funding emergency preparedness for American citizens, Biden-Harris spent over $1 billion from FEMA on migrant services and just sent another $2.7 billion to Ukraine,” Rep. Roger Williams (R-Tenn.), chair of the House Small Business Committee, said on X. “This is America last.”

However, foreign aid funding is not tied to FEMA’s disaster relief fund; Congress appropriates those allocations separately. Congress has not approved supplemental disaster relief funding since last September, when FEMA’s disaster fund was similarly low on money.

“We have bad actors that are pushing this information that is negatively impacting our ability to help people,” Rothenberg, the FEMA spokesperson, said. “We want to help as many people as possible, we want people to apply for assistance from us, and all of this misinformation is just distracting from that.”

FEMA’s updated rumor-response webpage lists several of the most widely spread rumors about the agency’s response to Hurricane Helene. It notes that FEMA does have enough money, for now, and clarifies that the agency is not funneling money out of its disaster relief fund for nondisaster related efforts.

“The Shelter and Services Program (SSP) is a completely separate, appropriated grant program that was authorized and funded by Congress and is not associated in any way with FEMA’s disaster-related authorities or funding streams,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement.

‘You should be pissed’

Florida Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) outside former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial in New York in May. | Ted Shaffrey/AP

Many congressional Republicans and conservative outlets have not yet gotten the message.

The New York Post ran a headline Friday shared by the conservative Heritage Foundation that referred to the false rumor, calling it the “‘CON’ BEFORE THE STORM.”

Florida Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who this week co-sponsored a bipartisan bill to provide FEMA’s disaster relief fund with $10 billion in supplemental funding, posted an angry video for her followers on the social media platform X on Thursday in which she said, “You should be pissed.”

She alluded to another false rumor that FEMA is providing victims no more $750 and said, “I’m telling you, you need to get out and vote because this is not gonna stop; it’s just gonna continue with the inflation, with the border security issues …”

“I HAVE PEOPLE THAT HAVE DIED IN MY COUNTY AND FEMA GAVE FUNDING TO ILLEGALS!” she said in a separate post Wednesday.

During a segment Thursday, Fox News’ Trace Gallagher acknowledged the fact that the administration has clarified that disaster funding and migrant-services funding come from two separate federal accounts, but quickly dismissed the correction.

“Common sense doesn’t care about what money is in what bucket. Common sense knows all of the money comes from U.S. taxpayers,” Gallagher said. “So, why does FEMA have enough money to fund the Biden-Harris policy disaster and not enough to fund an uncontrollable natural disaster?”

The FEMA website encourages members of the public to “do your part to stop the spread” of misinformation by looking for “trusted sources of information,” sharing information only from trusted sources and discouraging others from sharing information from “unverified sources.”