National Border Patrol Council VP Chris Cabrera reacts to the Biden-Harris White House being accused of FEMA mismanagement on ‘The Evening Edit.'
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas faces a brand new firestorm of criticism for claiming FEMA is out of disaster funds proper because the DHS' Inspector General launched a report saying FEMA is sitting on a minimum of $8.3 billion in untapped, unspent funds.
On Oct 2, Mayorkas stated, “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.”
This new controversy is surfacing as Hurricane Milton has grow to be a Category 5 storm, and big evacuations at the moment are underway in Florida, which remains to be struggling from Hurricane Helene, as is way of the Southeast.
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A flood broken automotive outdoors the Ichiban restaurant on the Biltmore Village throughout from the Biltmore Estate within the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on Oct. 1, 2024, in Asheville, North Carolina. (Melissa Sue Gerrits / Getty Images)
But analysts say FEMA can't faucet unspent appropriations from long-ago crises, so the cash sits frozen as 600 persons are reportedly nonetheless lacking from Hurricane Helene, a minimum of 220 died, and whole cities have been wiped off the map. Helene is probably the most catastrophic hurricane to hit the U.S. since Katrina in 2005.
Budget consultants warn that this new firestorm reveals that FEMA has been was a slush fund that the company and the Biden-Harris White House can spend at will.
An August 2024 report from Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General famous, “As of October 2022, FEMA estimated that 847 disaster declarations with approximately $73 billion in unliquidated funds remained open.” The report additionally says “$8.3 billion in unliquidated obligations” was “for disasters declared in 2012 or earlier” that analysts say may very well be returned to assist folks battling for survival in disasters now.
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Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas holds a press convention at a U.S. Border Patrol station on Jan. 8, 2024, in Eagle Pass, Texas. (Getty Images)
The IG report concurs, saying, “More than $7 billion in unliquidated funds… could potentially be returned to the Disaster Relief Fund.”
Jeremy Portnoy, on the watchdog group Open the Books, notes that the best way FEMA has set it up, the company has locked in grant cash that it should use throughout and earlier than a “period of performance” deadline. That means the funds are obligated for that time interval.
However, the Inspector General report finds that FEMA has been extending deadlines by as much as 16 years for $7 billion value of grants, generally with out clarification. For instance, FEMA remains to be sitting on $4.5 billion in unused, frozen funds for Super Storm Sandy, which occurred 12 years in the past, in 2012. FEMA officers must justify and clarify why they’re extending deadlines in writing, however it’s unclear what they’re saying to justify freezing the funds for thus lengthy.
The IG report additionally notes that FEMA officers lengthen spending packages primarily based on “subjective” standards and that “as a result, the potential risk for fraud, waste, and abuse increases the longer a program remains open.”
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A washed out highway on Sept. 27, 2024, in Boone, North Carolina. (Melissa Sue Gerrits / Getty Images)
FEMA has responded to a file variety of storms. Last yr, the U.S. noticed 28 storms that induced greater than $1 billion in harm, and it has hit the $1 billion threshold 19 occasions to this point in 2024. Since 2001, stories present that FEMA practically ran out of cash in its Disaster Relief Fund 9 occasions.
Congressional Republicans are already hammering the Biden-Harris administration’s response to Hurricane Helene. FEMA is underneath hearth for spending $1.1 billion on sheltering and aiding unlawful aliens, in response to particulars in authorities paperwork. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., launched a invoice to finish FEMA’s shelter program for unlawful migrants.
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It raises the query: with the Biden-Harris White House turning disaster company FEMA into an adjunct company on the border disaster, is that a tacit admission its manufactured border disaster actually is a disaster?
