(The Center Square) – Republican members of the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security have launched an investigation into the alleged misuse of Federal Emergency Management Agency funds by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
DHS, which has oversight of FEMA, has directed that billions of dollars of FEMA funds be used to pay for food, housing, transportation and other services for illegal border crossers.
FEMA in recent years also has prioritized diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, The Center Square reported.
The committee is demanding answers from Mayorkas after on Oct. 2 he said FEMA “does not have the funds, to make it through the [hurricane] season.”
Mayorkas made the remarks after the Category 4 Hurricane Helene made landfall on Sept. 26 and proceeded to cause destruction for 500 miles, causing an estimated $47.5 billion in damages in 16 states, excluding loss of life. Helene particularly devastated portions of the states of Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. Hurricane Milton, a category 3 hurricane, next hit Florida on Oct. 8, causing up to $2.5 billion in agricultural damages alone, according to state estimates.
At an Oct. 11 press conference, Mayorkas said more than $350 million in FEMA assistance was distributed to help Helene survivors, “with millions more going out every day.”
By Oct. 16, the White House announced the Biden-Harris administration had approved more than $1.8 billion in assistance for hurricane recovery efforts, with more than $911 million in already approved assistance for Helene survivors. Nearly 8,000 federal personnel “remain on the ground working side-by-side with state and local officials to help survivors with recovery and rebuilding,” the White House said.
House committee Republicans said in a letter to Mayorkas that any FEMA “funding shortfall is extremely disconcerting” because Americans impacted by the deadly hurricanes “face dire circumstances while the Biden-Harris administration may have unwisely and irresponsibly focused funding requests for other FEMA activities.” They also said Congress had met or exceeded appropriation requests for FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund, with $61.2 billion allocated in fiscal years 2023 and 2024.
Scrutiny comes after in fiscal years 2023 and 2024, FEMA disbursed more than $1.4 billion of taxpayer money through grants to states, local governments and nongovernmental organizations to pay for services for illegal border crossers through its Emergency Food and Shelter Program-Humanitarian Program (EFSP) and Shelter and Services Program (SSP).
Congress created the EFSP in 1983, later authorized it under a 1987 homeless assistance act, and has funded it since fiscal 1995, according to the Congressional Research Service. Funds are supposed to be prioritized to help the homeless, unemployed and more recently have been prioritized for “communities most affected by the influx of migrants,” CRS says.
Under the Trump administration, Congress set aside $25 million, 83.3%, of the EFSP funding through supplemental appropriation for southern border state local recipient organizations (LROs).
A March 2023 DHS Inspector General report found that under the Biden-Harris administration, the LROs were not always using the most recent batch of $110 million in funds they received as intended by statute. The LROs “did not always provide the required receipts or documentation for claimed reimbursements” and “were unable to provide supporting documentation” for how the money was spent, the Office of the Inspector General found.
By statute, six private nonprofit organizations govern the allocation of EFSP funds: the American Red Cross, Catholic Charities U.S.A., the Council of Jewish Federations, Inc., the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., the Salvation Army, and the United Way of America, CRS notes.
Congress continues to fund DHS and FEMA programs, including in the latest Sept. 26 continuing resolution, allocating $20 billion to FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund. A recent FEMA advisory states that doing so enabled it to “begin processing obligations of approximately $9 billion for over 3,000 paused projects” to help “communities, schools, and hospitals across the nation recover from and mitigate against disasters.”
“Due to the uncertainty of receiving additional funding, and if current spending rates hold, the agency projects it will reimplement INF before the end of the calendar year,” FEMA said. It’s referring to Immediate Needs Funding restrictions it put in place “to preserve critical resources necessary for lifesaving and life sustaining activities against a rapidly depleting Disaster Relief Fund balance.”
In the most recent omnibus passed by Congress, “roughly $650 million was directed away from U.S. Customs and Border Protection to FEMA to fund the SSP,” the committee says.
“In last year’s supplemental spending request alone, which House Republicans roundly rejected, the Biden-Harris administration asked for $1.4 billion in new funds for the SSP,” the committee said.
The committee gave Mayorkas a deadline of Oct. 25 to provide information it requested related to FEMA disaster recovery efforts, including the EFSP and SSP.