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A mother who emigrates from Honduras is holding her 1-year-old child while she surrenders to US Border Patrol officers in June after illegally crossing the border near McAllen, Texas. (AP / David J. Phillip)
The Trump administration appears to have embezzled nearly $ 10 million in funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency's vanguard policy maker. Zero tolerance immigration of the president. children, some as young as 18 months, of their parents.
The reallocation of public funds is documented in a notice of "transfer and reprogramming" prepared during this fiscal year by the Department of Homeland Security, the ICE supervisory department, given that the agency is known. It was made public by Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon in an appearance on Tuesday on "The Rachel Maddow Show", as Hurricane Florence headed for the Carolinas.
Merkley's office provided the 39-page budget document independently to the Washington Post. It shows that DHS has asked for approximately $ 9.8 million to be allocated to FEMA efforts such as "Preparation and Protection" and "Response and Recovery" in ICE funds, including "detention beds" and The US secret services have also benefited from the reassignment.
[Hurricane Florence charges toward the Carolinas with ‘potential for unbelievable damage’]
"It's a scandal," Merkley said in a statement emailed to the post office. "At the beginning of the hurricane season, as US citizens in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands continue to suffer from FEMA's insufficient recovery efforts, the administration has transferred millions of dollars to FEMA. And why? Implement their deeply misguided "zero tolerance" policy. It was not enough to extract thousands of children from the arms of their parents – the administration chose to pay part of this horrific program by removing the ability to respond to the damage caused by the next potentially devastating hurricane season.
The "monster", as Governor Roy Cooper of North Carolina has called the gathering storm off the southeast Atlantic coast, causing tremendous damage and a resurgence of the devastating hurricane season of, according to an after-action report from the agency. In the year following the strongest storm in the country, Hurricane Harvey caused the largest rainstorm in the Houston area.
As Trump promised on Tuesday that "we are sparing no expense" to prepare Florence, the DHS did not dispute the authenticity of the document in a statement posted on Twitter. The department acknowledged that funds had been redirected but said the transfer did not jeopardize relief efforts.
The memorandum highlights immigration control operations reinforced by FEMA funds. Without the transfer, the paper notes that "ICE will not be able to meet its adult detention requirements by 2018." DHS points out that insufficient funding could prevent the "ICE from being able to meet its adult detention requirements by 2018." deportation of persons in violation of immigration laws to "release all new book-ins and illegal offenders", to "reduce its internal control operations" and to limit "criminal arrests and fugitive ".
According to the ministry, these new limits "would pose a significant risk to public safety and national security by allowing known offenders to remain at large."
The precise timing of the reallocation is not clear because the document, which refers to the 2018 fiscal year, does not include an exact date. It appears to have been written by May 2018, a month to which the notification refers in the past. And the information in the document's record indicates that it was created in late June, the first month of the hurricane season in the Atlantic. An advisor to the Senate told the Post that the tax opinion seems to have been drafted in June, sent to Congress at the end of the month and approved by the majority between July and September.
DHS is required to report to the House and Senate Subcommittees on Domestic Security the reprogramming of funds in excess of $ 5 million in accordance with the US Code. Merkley, who is a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, told Maddow that the document he had issued was the notification that would have reached the relevant subcommittee. "I think this movement of funds is within the flexibility of the administration," he said.
Merkley said he found the document as part of his efforts to "stop the separation of children," including his attempt in early June to visit a detention center in southern Texas. He linked the transfer of funds to the zero tolerance policy announced by Attorney General Jeff Sessions in May.
"Obviously, they said," If we start arresting, as a criminal case, and detaining people, we have to have much larger detention camps, well we'd better earn more money. " "Money," said Merkley.Tuesday night on the MSNBC issue.He also hinted that the financial pressure was tied to this month's announcement by the administration of new regulations designed to allow the extension of the detention of families entering the United States without legal status.
Regarding FEMA, the notification document states that "the impact of the mission" will be "minimized", as the agency will reduce training, travel, public engagement sessions and the support of computer security.
A DHS spokesperson responded to Merkley's allegations in a series of tweets on Tuesday night, acknowledging the budget reallocation, but arguing that the funds in question came from FEMA's "current operating expenses". "
Former DHS and FEMA officials, however, questioned the spokesman's claim that the money in question was separate from the "hurricane response," saying these funds were essential to the relief mission.
"Anyone who knows FEMA knows it's an analytical word," said Moira Whelan, former chief of staff of the Gulf Coast Reconstruction Office at Homeland National Clearinghouse. Security. Whelan indicated that disaster relief funding was not affected by the transfer. It covers assistance after the storm and rebuilding public structures, while response and recovery funds are used to finance plans, logistics, reporting that are looking to improve compared to previous seasons, said Mr. Whelan, who is also a former head of the State Department and the US Agency for International Development.
The approximately $ 10 million spent on ICE comes from an operating budget of about $ 1 billion that supports much of FEMA's efforts, said a former FEMA official who asked not to be identified . This includes staff, meetings and exercises, he said – all essential for the preparation of the next hurricane season. One example, said the former manager, was the network of warehouses operated by FEMA across the country, which requires staff and supplies.
Trump said Tuesday that the government was "absolutely, totally prepared" for the hurricane that hits the Carolinas. Florence is expected to land in southeastern North Carolina on Friday as a Category 3 or 4 hurricane, bringing destructive winds and leaving floods in its wake.
"We are ready, FEMA is ready, everyone is ready," Trump said in brief remarks to the Andrews Common Base.
Later in the day, after a briefing on the hurricane, the president said, "The safety of the American people is my top priority. We are not sparing any expense. He also took the opportunity to call his administration's response to Hurricane Maria, which killed nearly 3,000 people in Puerto Rico, an American territory already damaged by the hurricane, as "an incredible and little-known success". Irma a few weeks ago.
It's "one of the best things ever done about what it's all about," Trump said.
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