Trump Diverts $271 Million From FEMA To Pay For Migrant Trials, Beds

The official line will probably be that “Mexico is going to pay for it”, but in the meantime, FEMA is footing the bill.

The Trump administration is all set to raid some $271 million in funding from DHS, including $155 million in disaster relief funds and divert the money to ICE.

That’s according to a letter seen by NBC on Tuesday. “The allocations were sent to Congress as a notification rather than a request, because the administration believes it has the authority to repurpose these funds after Congress did not pass more funding for ICE detention beds as part of an emergency funding bill for the southwest border in June”, NBC reports, detailing the notification.

The specifics are rather unfortunate sounding.

$116 million that was earmarked for the Coast Guard and aviation security will now be plowed into nearly 7,000 cots for detained migrants. Apparently, the new money that would have been used to protect America’s coastlines and keep our airspace secure will allow ICE to arrest and hold as many as 50,000 immigrants “at one time”. (Congrats!)

As NBC goes on to note, undocumented migrant arrivals at the southwest border (where “arrivals” means those who were either detained or presented themselves) plunged from 144,000 in May to just over 82,000 last month. The July figure is still up by 100% YoY, however.

The other $155 million will go towards arranging court proceedings for Central American migrants sent back to Mexico to await their fate. The new money will, according to NBC’s account of the letter, “allow those immigrants waiting in Mexico to have their cases heard at the border, rather than being transported to locations within the interior of the country”.

That money (the $155 million) was allotted to FEMA nearly 14 years ago and was set to be incorporated into the current budget, where it would be deployed in disaster relief efforts including responding to hurricanes.

As it happens, Donald Trump spent quite a bit of time tweeting about storms on Tuesday. “Wow! Yet another big storm heading to Puerto Rico”, he remarked, before asking “Will it ever end?”

Probably not, sir. Especially if we never get serious on combatting climate change.

The president then reminded America that “Congress approved 92 Billion Dollars for Puerto Rico last year, an all time record of its kind for ‘anywhere'”. Trump’s contentious relationship with Puerto Rico is the stuff of legend – a tragicomedy, of sorts.

Lawmakers are skeptical.

“I object to the use of funds for that purpose because the Department has provided no substantiation for a claim that this transfer is necessary due to ‘extraordinary circumstances that imminently threaten the safety of human life or the protection of property'”, Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard said. 

Jon Tester chimed in as well. “I have grave concerns about DHS’s proposed end-run around laws passed by Congress that would drain millions from agencies tasked with protecting the homeland from security threats and natural disasters like hurricanes and wildfires”, he chided.

But look, it’s fine. Because as Trump will happily explain, preventing wildfires is as simple as doing a better job raking the forest floor.

And when it comes to hurricanes, well, you can just nuke those.

Or not…

Just returned to Washington from France and the very successful G-7, only to find that the Fake News is still trying to perpetuate the phony story that I wanted to use Nuclear weapons to blow up hurricanes before they reach shore. This is so ridiculous, never happened!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 27, 2019