Homeland Republicans Press DHS Secretary Mayorkas on FEMA Spending for Disasters, Illegal Aliens

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Last week, House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark E. Green, MD (R-TN) led Republican members of the Committee in demanding answers from Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for the Biden-Harris administration's backwards spending priorities. Specifically, the members condemned the Biden-Harris administration's push for hundreds of millions of dollars every year for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to spend specifically on illegal aliens, first through the Emergency Food and Shelter Program-Humanitarian (EFSP-H), and subsequently the Shelter and Services Program (SSP). Read the full letter here.

Read more in Fox News via Adam Shaw.

In the letter, the members write, "[Y]ou stated to media reporters that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) 'does not have the funds, to make it through the [hurricane] season.' If true, FEMA's funding shortfall is extremely disconcerting as Americans impacted by Hurricane Helene and potentially by Hurricane Milton face dire circumstances while the Biden-Harris administration may have unwisely and irresponsibly focused funding requests for other FEMA activities."

The members continue, "FEMA operates the Disaster Relief Fund (DRF), the federal government's primary fund for disaster relief activities. Throughout the Biden-Harris administration, Congress consistently met or exceeded, through supplemental appropriations, the President's budget requests for disaster relief. In fiscal year (FY) 2023 and FY2024, Congress appropriated approximately $61.2 billion for the DRF through a combination of both annual and supplemental appropriations. The Committee, however, is troubled that the Department and FEMA may not have properly appraised Congress of its need for additional disaster relief funds while simultaneously requesting large sums of monies to fund FEMA's Shelter and Services Program (SSP), a grant program to fund nonfederal entities for shelter and services provided to migrants encountered by the Department, including illegal aliens."

The members conclude, "According to analysts, Hurricane Helene caused up to $47.5 billion in damages to Americans across 16 states. The recovery for these communities will take years and possibly even decades. While the Committee understands that there is no intermingling of funds between the DRF and SSP, the Department's priorities for limited resources provided by taxpayers to the Department should first and foremost serve Americans."

Background:
Over the past three and a half years, the Biden-Harris administration has fought for billions of taxpayer dollars to radically alter FEMA's mission.

• The Disaster Relief Fund (DRF) is used to pay for relief needed following disasters like Hurricane Helene. It is also used to fund recovery from past disasters.
  • Despite Secretary Mayorkas' recent claim that FEMA will run out of hurricane relief funds before the end of the year, FEMA received $20 billion in new DRF funds via the September 26 continuing resolution. FEMA itself stated in a recent advisory the CR "gives FEMA access to enough funding to lift Immediate Needs Funding" (INF is a classification within the DRF, not a separate fund, and functions as guidance for how DRF funds may be spent).
• EFSP-Humanitarian was created several years ago to help pay for costs associated with illegal aliens.
  • During the Biden-Harris administration, it has been renamed the Shelter and Services Program (SSP), and the dollars allocated to it have also increased dramatically. In the most recent omnibus, roughly $650 million was directed away from Customs and Border Protection to FEMA to fund the SSP.
• In last year's supplemental spending request alone, which House Republicans roundly rejected, the Biden-Harris administration asked for $1.4 billion in new funds for the SSP.
• In FY23, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) transferred $800 million from its budget to FEMA to fund the EFSP-H and SSP.
• According to a March 2023 DHS OIG report, millions of FEMA dollars going to care for illegal aliens may have been broadly abused. Per the Office of the Inspector General, "FEMA did not provide sufficient oversight" of the use of these funds, and some fund recipients used those dollars to provide services to gotaways.
• In January 2022, officials from Brownsville, Texas, told Fox News' Bill Melugin and Adam Shaw that "its Office of Emergency Management, through federal assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), works to facilitate 'the transfer of these migrants to their final destination by allowing them to use services to contact their families, NGOs, or a taxicab.'"

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