Federal Emergency Administration Company (FEMA) has warned that it has run out of funding initially of America’s hurricane season. Final month, the company testified earlier than Congress that it nonetheless has $4 billion in its Catastrophe Aid Fund, then claimed that Hurricane Helene wiped via the funds. The company has been begging Congress to approve further funding, however a brand new report discovered that FEMA has a minimum of $8.3 billion in unused funds.
“We are expecting another hurricane hitting. We do not have the funds. FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season and what is imminent,” Homeland Safety Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas introduced on October 2. Joe Biden warned that the federal authorities has already supplied the victims, 600 who’re nonetheless lacking, with all the help he was prepared to offer. The place has all the cash gone?
“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,” former President Donald Trump stated. FEMA was certainly tasked with offering cash to Customs and Border Safety again in 2022 to assist communities overrun with unlawful migrants. In truth, FEMA supplied $640 million in grants to Customs and Border Safety in 2024 alone, and spent $364 on the migrant disaster in 2023. That is merely one among numerous packages misusing federal funds on non-citizens.
But, Homeland Safety’s Workplace of Inspector Basic issued a report that reveals FEMA nonetheless has billions in unused support. “As of October 2022, FEMA estimated that 847 disaster declarations with approximately $73 billion in unliquidated funds remained open,” the report famous.
The company is just corrupt. FEMA nonetheless has $4.5 billion in frozen unused funds from Hurricane Sandy that hit 12 years in the past, but the deadline for this mission was prolonged into 2026. Officers proceed to increase deadlines and freeze funds with no clear indication as to why. Jeremy Portnoy of OpenTheBooks, a nonpartisan watchdog of presidency spending, claims that “all the money is just sitting there.” He has said that FEMA is freezing “unliquidated obligations” at a time when it might simply reappoint these funds for fast catastrophe aid. A separate DHS report believes “the potential risk for fraud, waste, and abuse increases the longer a program remains open.”
The company has allegedly run out of funds from its Catastrophe Aid Fund on 9 events since 2001. We’re seeing numerous reviews on the bottom of FEMA selectively distributing provides. Personal contractors who secured profitable authorities offers are incomes massive whereas the federal government actively prevents particular person residents from aiding in rescuing efforts and delivering support. The media is now claiming that the GOP merely doesn’t wish to grant FEMA further funding, however why ought to we offer this company with further funding that might doubtlessly go lacking or change into wrapped up in crimson tape? FEMA is actually not a philanthropist group because it function simply as every other public authorities entity the place budgets are cast and the folks on the high are profiting on the backs of taxpayers.