The Trump Administration is Illegally Using FEMA to Support ICE Recruitment
WASHINGTON, DC - Yesterday, new reporting from NOTUS revealed that the Trump administration has been diverting FEMA resources to recruit for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — and that Arizona Rep. Greg Stanton, the top House Democrat on the subcommittee overseeing FEMA, has asked both the Government Accountability Office and the DHS Inspector General to investigate whether doing so is illegal. The answer, based on the law Congress passed after Hurricane Katrina, is almost certainly yes.
Rep. Stanton sent five letters to oversight officials demanding answers about the diversion. FEMA staff have been paid overtime to work on immigration recruitment, and employees at the Department of Defense were asked to apply for an ICE volunteer program through a FEMA portal.
"Congress built a firewall around FEMA after Katrina for exactly this reason: to prevent administrations from gutting disaster response capacity for political projects. The Trump administration is systematically violating that firewall, putting millions of Americans at risk,” said Sabotaging Our Safety Advisory Council Member Ashley Shelton. “FEMA staff should be preparing communities for hurricanes, wildfires, and floods — not recruiting for immigration enforcement. It's time to make that firewall permanent by making FEMA independent."
This episode illustrates why Sabotaging Our Safety has been demanding that FEMA become an independent, cabinet-level agency. As long as FEMA answers to DHS, any administration can treat it as a whole-of-government resource — for deportations, for political favors, for anything except the mission Congress assigned it.
Sabotaging Our Safety has been demanding FEMA become an independent cabinet-level agency following a year of incompetence and politicization that left millions facing disasters in danger. The organization continues to call for transparent data-sharing with Congress, accountability in disaster aid allocation, and an end to the diversion of FEMA resources away from their core mission of protecting Americans from disasters.
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