Donald Trump sparked a political spat by claiming Individuals hit onerous by Hurricane Helene have been shedding out as a result of emergency aid funds have been spent on immigrants.
The White Home shortly rebutted the claims and accused Republicans of spreading “daring lies” about catastrophe aid funding.
Homeland Safety Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas mentioned on Wednesday that his company, the Federal Emergency Administration Company (FEMA), is wanting money for the rest of hurricane season.
Trump and his allies have expressed anger that the company has spent greater than $640 million (£487 million) on housing immigrants.
However officers famous that the funding, approved by Congress, is a part of a completely completely different program run by the Federal Emergency Administration Company and has nothing to do with catastrophe aid.
With lower than a month to go till the White Home election, Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris are neck-and-neck in a handful of swing states, resembling 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 throughout the Southeast final week, killing at the least 225 individuals and leaving tons of lacking.
Each Trump and Vice President Harris have visited among the affected states.
“Numerous the cash that was alleged to go to Georgia, North Carolina, and all the opposite cash has gone,” Trump mentioned with out proof on Friday at an occasion in Evans, Georgia.
“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 supply 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 practically $20 billion catastrophe aid fund used to answer hurricanes and different pure disasters.
FEMA’s catastrophe aid price range for this 12 months expired on the finish of September, and the company is now working on short-term funding whereas Congress negotiates a brand new annual price range.
The company responded to Trump’s claims Dedicated fact-checking pageand an announcement from the Division of Homeland Safety.
“That is mistaken. No funds are getting used for catastrophe aid wants,” FEMA mentioned in an announcement.
The company mentioned it has donated greater than $45 million to communities affected by Hurricane Helene to this point.
Vice President Harris mentioned 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 have been on the scene.
However Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., tweeted on Thursday that billions of {dollars} in international support could be despatched to Ukraine as a substitute of to U.S. residents who misplaced every little thing within the storm. “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.
