Trump and Vance continue to push debunked claim of FEMA money going to migrants instead of hurricane survivors

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Donald Trump and JD Vance continued to push a debunked narrative on Monday that money from FEMA had been diverted away from hurricane survivors – and distributed to people who enter the country illegally.

Trump wrote on his social media platform Monday morning that North Carolina had been “virtually abandoned” by Vice President Kamala Harris - despite the fact the Democratic presidential nominee had visited the state on Saturday. He also insisted money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency is not going to disaster relief.

“The GREAT people of North Carolina are being stood up by Harris and Biden, who are giving almost all of the FEMA money to Illegal Migrants in what is now considered to be the WORST rescue operation in the history of the U.S.,” he wrote.

His running mate made similar claims in a morning media appearance.

“There’s a bucket of money in FEMA that’s gone to illegal aliens and that’s somehow separate than the bucket of money that should by right go to American citizens,” Vance told Fox News’s “Fox & Friends.”

“I think that misses the fundamental point that the Biden-Harris administration has turned FEMA effectively into an agency that helps to resettle and helps to deal with illegal immigration,” he said. “That is just fundamentally going to distract focus from their core job of helping American citizens in their time of need.”

However, the White House and FEMA officials deny the claim and have even launched a website to combat the false narrative being fed by Republicans.

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“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,” the agency said.

The Biden administration has also shot down the narrative.

“I mean, it’s just categorically false. It is not true. It is a false statement,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Friday. “It is a false statement.”

Director Deanne Criswell told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Monday that certain leaders “having a hard time telling the difference between fact and fiction” are impeding FEMA’s ability to help people.

The Department of Homeland Security - which oversees FEMA as well as border security but under different agencies - has also denied the claims.

“As Secretary Mayorkas said, FEMA has the necessary resources to meet the immediate needs associated with Hurricane Helene and other disasters,” the department said in a statement to The Washington Post on Thursday. “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.”

The program is administered by FEMA in partnership with US Customs and Border Protection, providing financial support to non-federal entities to provide humanitarian services to noncitizen migrants following their release from Homeland Security. Congress raised the budget for the program by a few hundred million, according to The Post. The total funding for fiscal year 2024 was $650 million.

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There is no evidence that any money from the disaster fund was used for migrants, and FEMA’s spokeswoman Jaclyn Rothenberg said that the agency has what it needs for immediate response and recovery efforts.

The storm has left more than 230 people dead across six states, as areas are still cleaning up a nearly week after the storm’s landfall

“The streams of funding are different, that is not an untrue statement, of course,” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson told “Fox News Sunday.”

“But the problem is with the American people, see, and what they’re frustrated by, is that FEMA should be involved. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, their mission is to help people in times like this of natural disaster. Not to be engaged in using any pool of funding from any account for resettling illegal aliens who have come across the border. That’s what the Biden administration, Kamala Harris and Secretary Mayorkas have been engaged in,” he said.

Congress appropriated more than $35 billion in disaster relief funds for fiscal year 2024, according to FEMA statistics. Lawmakers recently passed a spending bill that would allow it to draw from around $20 billion this month.

Many leaders in states affected by Helene have called for Congress to return to approve additional funds, as Hurricane Milton approaches western Florida. Although, FEMA still faces a shortfall at the end of the year.

“Without additional funding, FEMA would be required to forego longer-term recovery activities in favor of meeting urgent needs. Congress should provide FEMA additional resources to avoid forcing that kind of unnecessary trade-off and to give the communities we serve the certainty of knowing that help will be ongoing, both for the short- and long-term,” President Joe Biden wrote in a letter to Congress. Johnson said Sunday that Congress will be in back after the election.