ICYMI: Trump Officials Refuse To Show Up As Congress Examines FEMA Workers Diverted To ICE
WASHINGTON, DC - Donald Trump sent no one to defend his FEMA record before Congress this week, the latest evidence that Congress should pass the bipartisan FEMA Act and establish FEMA as an independent, cabinet-level agency. New reporting from Truthout details what the administration left unanswered: a House investigation finding that FEMA personnel were pulled from disaster work to help ICE and CBP recruit officers, plan raids, and process detainees, following the deepest workforce reduction in the agency's history.
“Congress held a hearing on the future of FEMA, and the only FEMA administrator in the room left office in 2017. One week after Trump denied $227 million in disaster aid to Democratic states, not a single administration official showed up to answer for it. If the White House believes its record is defensible, it should send someone to defend it,” said Sabotaging Our Safety Advisory Council Member Rafael Lemaitre. “ Until then, Congress should draw the obvious conclusion: disaster relief cannot be left to the political whims of any president. The answer is an independent, cabinet-level FEMA, so that whether a family gets help after a flood or a fire never again depends on how their state voted.”
More from Truthout: Trump Under Fire for Diverting Disaster Relief Workers to Immigration Policing
Trump recently rejected $227 million in aid requests from four blue states — New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island — for help recovering from a major blizzard in February. However, on June 30, Trump announced more than $846 million in disaster aid for nine GOP-leaning states while lavishing praise on Republican leaders and candidates.
Rafael Lemaitre, a former public affairs director at FEMA who works with the watchdog group Sabotaging Our Safety, said Trump clearly denied aid to the four blue states for partisan reasons, and one week later, “not a single administration official showed up to answer for it” at the House hearing.
“If the White House believes its record is defensible, it should send someone to defend it,” Lemaitre told Truthout in an email. “Until then, Congress should draw the obvious conclusion: disaster relief cannot be left to the political whims of any president.”
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