Trump Administration Pulls Millions From Emergency Relief To Fund The U.S.-Mexico Border Enforcement

The Trump Administration is pulling $271 million in funds from the Department of Homeland Security, including FEMA’s disaster relief fund, to pay for immigration detention spaces and temporary waiting spaces for those at the border, according to department officials and a letter sent to the agency by a California congresswoman. 

NBCNews reports Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, D-CA wrote in the letter to fund the temporary locations for hearings and asylum-seekers along the border, ICE would gain $155 million, all of which will come from FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund.

Rep. Roybal-Allard, chairwoman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on homeland security, said the move showed “a growing disconnect between the will of Congress” and the implementation of immigration enforcement operations, according to Washington Post.

Congress received these allocations, not with a request, but by notification due to the fact the administration believes it has the power to repurpose the funds since Congress did not pass on more funding for ICE detention beds as part of an emergency funding bill in June, according to the article. 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called the administration’s action “stunningly reckless,” adding that “to pick the pockets of disaster relief funding in order to fund an appalling, inhumane family incarceration plan is staggering.”

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) called the move “backwards and cruel.” He continued on to say, “Taking these critical funds from disaster preparedness and recovery efforts threaten lives and weakens the government’s ability to help Americans in the wake of natural disasters,” The Washington Post reports. 

This all happened as the coast enters hurricane season, many find the decision outrages, essentially summing up the actions as the administration stealing from the DHS.

Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, also spoke out regarding the move, warning that “taking money away from TSA and from FEMA in the middle of hurricane season could have deadly consequences.”

“Once again this administration is flouting the law and Congressional intent to fund its extremist indefinite detention immigration policies,” he said in a statement Tuesday, according to the article. “This is reckless, and the Administration is playing with fire — all in the name of locking up families and children and playing to the President’s base leading up to an election year.”