Matt Gaetz: Whistleblowers Say Troops, Other Responders Sat Idle Waiting for FEMA Orders to Assist with Hurricane Helene

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), in a letter sent Friday to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, said whistleblowers have told his office that service members and federal, state, and local responders sat idle while waiting on orders from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to deploy to areas affected by Hurricane Helene.

“As reported and further confirmed by my office, hundreds, if not thousands of service members were deployed by the Department of Defense to North Carolina and have sat idle, waiting for FEMA,” Gaetz wrote.

“We have confirmed FEMA employees deployed, on the clock, awaiting orders in hotels. FEMA pre-disaster aid was withheld, exacerbating the emergency,” he added.

Gaetz slammed Mayorkas’s comments on Thursday, when Mayorkas said that FEMA did not “have enough funds to make it through” the hurricane season.

“This news comes after FEMA has spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on migrants due to Border Czar Kamala Harris’ open border instead of prioritizing funding for Americans impacted by disasters,” Gaetz wrote. “It is also public [knowledge] that NGOs have purchased airline tickets for migrants through the use of FEMA funds.”

“The aftermath of Hurricane Helene is a major disaster, and your waste and unpreparedness are leaving Americans in distress—unable to access food, water, or medicine—and expecting help, with none coming,” Gaetz said.

He asked Mayorkas to provide answers to the following questions by next Friday:

(1) What policies and regulations of the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA prevent emergency funds from being wasted on illegal immigrants, including what conditions are placed on grantees of the agency?; and

(2) Of FEMA’s total budget for FY 2024, what portion of funds can be guaranteed to have been spent solely on American citizens, and what portion of funds was or may have been spent on noncitizens?; and

(3) In FY 2024, what portion of funds in the Disaster Relief Fund have been spent on non-disaster-relief programs, such as providing services to illegal aliens or providing routine training to FEMA employees authorized out of general appropriations?

The death toll from Hurricane Helene hit 200 on Friday — the deadliest hurricane since Hurricane Katrina.

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