A handful of Senate Republicans are warning that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are siphoning taxpayer funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), meant for Americans in need following natural disasters, to help migrants newly released into the United States.
“Congress has appropriated over $30 billion to FEMA for Fiscal Year 2024. Your Administration has spent over $650 million on FEMA’s border-related programs in Fiscal Year 2024. Since taking office, the Biden-Harris Administration has spent around $1.5 billion on FEMA’s border-related programs,” the Senators wrote to Biden and Harris.
The letter, from October 4, reads:
We are concerned that your Administration’s reliance on FEMA to address the ongoing border crisis, under Vice President Harris as ‘border czar,’ has diminished FEMA’s readiness for disaster relief, including hurricane response. [Emphasis added]
The letter, signed by Sens. Roger Marshall (R-KS), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Rand Paul (R-KY), James Lankford (R-OK), and Ron Johnson (R-WI), comes as Americans across six states, including North Carolina, Tennessee, and South Carolina, have been left devastated by Hurricane Helene.
WATCH: Entire House Swept Away by Floodwaters in NC After Hurricane Helene’s Remnants Strike
As a result, Biden and Harris have been blasted for using hundreds of thousands of FEMA funds to aid newly arrived migrants who crossed the southern border and were subsequently released into the U.S. interior.
The group of Senate Republicans are similarly outraged and are asking Biden and Harris to turn over details about FEMA’s southern border-related programs, including how many employees have been transferred to border missions, how much money has been reprogrammed to the border, and what the administration is doing to recover funds that have gone to ineligible migrants.
“On the first day of the Biden-Harris Administration, you took decisive action to open the border and invite the chaos we have seen over the past 3.5 years. You ended Remain in Mexico, stopped deporting illegal immigrants, and terminated border wall construction. Over 8.4 million migrants have been encountered since you took those actions to open the border,” the Senators write:
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) set multiple records for the most encounters in a single day and in a single month during your Administration. We have repeatedly asked you, your Cabinet, and officials across the Federal government what the plan is for addressing this historic border crisis. By March 2021, FEMA was already mobilized to address the surge of unaccompanied minors after your Administration exempted them from the Title 42 order. As your Administration began planning for the end of the Title 42 order, we learned that you had placed a senior FEMA official as the senior coordinating official for your response to impending surge. [Emphasis added]
Since the end of the Title 42 order, FEMA has continued to play a role in addressing the ongoing border crisis through the Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP) and through the Shelter and Services Program (SSP). These programs have supported the US Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) ‘Plan for Southwest Border Security and Preparedness,’ which calls for FEMA to ‘bolster[…] the capacity of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to receive noncitizens after they have been processed by CBP and are awaiting the results of their immigration removal proceedings. And … coordination with and support for state, local, and community leaders to help mitigate increased impacts to their communities.’ Oversight from the DHS Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found that some illegal aliens who were ineligible for EFSP and SSP funding ended up receiving benefits funded by these programs. All told, FEMA has received $1.7 billion for its southern border response efforts. Emblematic of this Administration’s approach, one FEMA official informed my Subcommittee staff during a site visit that the Biden-Harris border crisis is like a hurricane: ‘FEMA can buy its way out of the border crisis if Congress allocates it enough money.’ [Emphasis added]
At the same time, the Senators note, the Biden-Harris administration has “regularly requested that Congress cut detention beds and funding for border enforcement measures” while at the same time requesting that a continued flow of taxpayer money go to FEMA’s border-related programs.
“Rather than ensuring FEMA is ready to respond to hurricanes and other emergencies, FEMA has been pulled into a border crisis mission,” the Senators write. “FEMA’s mission is ‘helping people before, during, and after disasters,’ not helping DHS clean up the impact of your Administration’s reckless border policies.”
“We are very concerned that FEMA’s role at the border has impacted its readiness and preparation efforts for Hurricane Helene and its response efforts,” they continue.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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