A political uproar has erupted after Donald Trump said Americans hit hard by Hurricane Helen could lose emergency relief money because it was spent on immigrants.
The blame game began on Wednesday after U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorgas said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which he oversees, was underfunded throughout the hurricane season.
Trump and his allies expressed outrage that the agency spent $640m (£487m) on immigration. But U.S. officials said the money was earmarked for disaster relief through a completely different fund.
The White House called Trump’s claims “poisonous” and accused his fellow Republicans of spreading “bald-faced lies” about the storm response.
With less than a month to go before the White House election, Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris are neck-and-neck in some swing states like North Carolina and Georgia, which have been hit by a storm to decide the vote.
The main US landfall hurricane since Katrina in 2005, Helen tore through the Southeast last week, killing at least 225 and leaving hundreds missing.
Both Trump and Vice President Harris have made trips to some of the affected states.
At an event in Evans, Georgia, on Friday, Trump said: “A lot of money that should go to Georgia and should go to North Carolina, everything else is going, is already gone.
“It’s gone to people who came into the country illegally, and no one has ever seen anything like it. It’s a shame.”
FEMA received a $640 million budget from Congress last fiscal year — to provide housing for immigrants applying for U.S. citizenship.
But the money came from the federal immigration agency, Customs and Border Protection.
It was spent through FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program (SSP) and is a separate pot of money for the agency’s nearly $20bn disaster relief fund, which is used to respond to hurricanes and other natural disasters.
FEMA’s annual disaster relief budget expires at the end of September and the agency is currently running on temporary funding while Congress negotiates a new annual budget.
The company has responded to Trump’s claim A dedicated fact-checking pageand a report from the Department of Homeland Security.
“This is false,” FEMA said in a statement. “No money is diverted from disaster recovery needs.”
So far, more than $45 million has been awarded to communities affected by Hurricane Helen, the agency said.
FEMA has sent 11.5m meals and 12.6m liters of water since Helen, Deputy Chief Harris said Friday, with more than 5,600 federal workers on the ground.
But Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. on Thursday posted on X, earlier on Twitter, Thursday that it was “insane” that billions of dollars in foreign aid would be sent to Ukraine to replace American citizens who lost everything in the storm.
Meanwhile, Trump’s critics have pointed out that during his 2019 presidency, $155 million was diverted from FEMA’s operating budget to deport migrants to Mexico.
