Donald Trump has sparked a political row by claiming People hit arduous by Hurricane Helene suffered as a result of emergency reduction funds had been diverted to immigrants.
The White Home rapidly rebutted the claims and accused Republicans of spreading “daring lies” about catastrophe reduction funding.
Homeland Safety Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas stated on Wednesday that his company, the Federal Emergency Administration Company (FEMA), is in need of money for the rest of hurricane season.
Trump and his allies have expressed anger on the company spending greater than $640 million (£487 million) on housing immigrants.
However officers famous that the funding, approved by Congress, is a part of a wholly totally different program run by the Federal Emergency Administration Company and has nothing to do with catastrophe reduction.
With lower than a month till the White Home election, Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris are neck-and-neck in a handful of battleground states, similar to storm-battered North Carolina and Georgia, that can decide the result of the vote.
Hurricane Helene, the worst hurricane within the continental United States since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, swept by way of the Southeast final week, killing a minimum of 225 individuals and leaving lots of lacking.
Each Trump and Vice President Harris have visited a number of the affected states.
At an occasion in Evans, Georgia, on Friday, Trump stated with out proof: “Quite a lot of the cash that was purported to go to Georgia, North Carolina, and all the opposite cash has gone and has been. Gone.
“For individuals who got here into this nation illegally, it is gone and nobody has ever seen something prefer it. It is such a disgrace.”
FEMA did obtain a price range from Congress — $640 million final fiscal 12 months — to offer housing for immigrants making use of for U.S. citizenship.
However the money got here by way of Customs and Border Safety, the federal immigration company.
The cash, spent by way of FEMA’s Shelter and Providers Program (SSP), is one other tranche of the company’s almost $20 billion catastrophe reduction fund used to reply to hurricanes and different pure disasters.
FEMA’s catastrophe reduction price range for this 12 months expired on the finish of September, and the company is now operating on momentary funding whereas Congress negotiates a brand new annual price range.
The company responded to Trump’s claims Devoted fact-checking web pageand an announcement from the Division of Homeland Safety.
“That is improper. No funds are getting used for catastrophe reduction wants,” FEMA stated in an announcement.
The company stated it has donated greater than $45 million to communities affected by Hurricane Helene thus far.
Vice President Harris stated on Friday that the Federal Emergency Administration Company had additionally delivered greater than 11.5 million meals and 12.6 million liters of water within the aftermath of Helen, including that greater than 5,600 federal personnel had been on the scene.
However Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., tweeted on Thursday that sending billions of {dollars} in overseas assist to Ukraine as a substitute of to U.S. residents who misplaced every part within the storm was ” Loopy”.
Trump’s critics, in the meantime, level out that when he was president in 2019, he appropriated $155 million from the Federal Emergency Administration Company’s working price range to fund the deportation of migrants to Mexico.
