Americans Suffer As DHS Awards $641 Million In Grants To FEMA For Non-Citizens

As American citizens suffer the devastation from the natural disaster in western North Carolina, Florida, and other southeastern states, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced FEMA funds will not be sufficient to cover the hurricane season. One of the reasons for the shortfall may be that DHS has diverted funding from FEMA to aid and resettle noncitizens and to help fund foreign interests such as the war in Ukraine. FEMA's rumor control page argues otherwise, stating the following:

 "This is false. No money is being diverted from disaster response needs. FEMA's disaster response efforts and individual assistance is funded through the Disaster Relief Fund, which is a dedicated fund for disaster efforts. Disaster Relief Fund money has not been diverted to other, non-disaster related efforts."

 FEMA's claim may be accurate in the strictest sense of the word. However, it is easy to conclude that if the agency ultimately gets some finite sum of taxpayer funding, a chunk of that funding does not benefit American citizens in need. The fact that it is coming from the disaster aid bucket may be a distinction without much of a difference. 

Either way, as Breanna Morello reported, about $640.9 million in FEMA funding is going toward noncitizens in FY2024 alone from the Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP). In FY2023, FEMA awarded almost $364 million to noncitizens...

In addition to yearly allocations in FEMA funding for EFSP in the millions, Biden reportedly signed in 2022 a massive spending bill that funneled $785 million to shelter, feed, and support noncitizens. Government money is notoriously difficult to track and nail down. However, regardless of how DHS does its funny math, the politics and ideology behind the allocations seem clear. The Hurricane Helene disaster has prompted many Americans to question Biden-Harris' priorities regarding American citizens.

Simon Hankinson, Senior Research Fellow for the Heritage Foundation, wrote in 2023 that the White House "held FEMA funding hostage" with a "$40 billion dollar supplemental funding bill" if Congress didn't send "billions more to Ukraine." Hankinson also pointed out that FEMA grant money, "unlike its Disaster Relief and Flood Insurance programs, doesn't require the president to declare a federal disaster." Sounds like a government funding workaround to me. According to Hankinson, New York City alone "burns through $8 million a day" in FEMA funding to noncitizens, and he affirms that FEMA grants are "meant to help taxpaying Americans prepare for and cope with hurricanes, fires, and floods."

The uncomfortable truth about the appropriation of funding is, according to the Constitution, these kinds of appropriations should never have been dictated or allocated by the Executive or DHS in the first place but rather by the House of Representatives. James Madison, in Federalist 58, wrote that the "power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure...reducing, as far as it seems to have wished, all the overgrown prerogatives of the other branches of government."

In the Virginia Ratifying Debates of 1788, Madison stated, "The Constitution places the power in the House of originating money bills." That is because representatives in the House "were chosen by the people and supposed to be the best acquainted with their interests and ability."

What Counties and States Are Most Affected by Hurricane Helene?

According to FEMA and state.gov websites, the counties most affected by Hurricane Helene are Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee are listed in the screencap below:

The effects of Hurricane Helene have been devastating. UncoverDC spoke with two North Carolina residents on Thursday. They confirmed rivers crested at historic levels above the flood zone. Bodies of adults, children, and animals are being found in remote areas and have been seen floating down rivers. Many of the places are remote and have no water or electricity. These remote areas rely on propane for energy, and it is almost impossible to deliver propane to the areas that are cut off because of badly eroded roads and byways. Homes and businesses have been reduced to splinters and rubble. Entire towns are entirely gone.