FEMA Did Not Spend Emergency Relief Funds to House Illegal Immigrants
“The claim is false. FEMA does provide nonfederal entities with grant funding to assist noncitizens in the country, but the program’s funding is separate from FEMA’s disaster relief efforts.” - The Dispatch
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So if FEMA uses the accounting technique of saying that "these" funds are for emergencies and "these other" funds are for immigrants, then we can say that FEMA is not using emergency funds for Immigrants. They are using "these other" funds. Is the conversation about this subject being framed in a dishonest way?
Here is another article with "Fact Check" in the title that looks at this issue from a different direction: Fact Check: Did FEMA Spend Hundreds of Millions of Dollars on Illegal Immigrants This Year? (msn.com)
The truth is that FEMA did NOT spend ALL its money on illegals but it did spend a substantial amount of it on them. This is more evidence that the Dispatch does not give the whole story, but tries to frame issues in a way to build a narrative. Don't get me wrong, the Dispatch is not alone in this, but we should not put it on our "unbiased source" list.
This argument comes up every few years. The money spent is not FEMA money, it is Department of Homeland Security's money and FEMA only administers the programs, because it is structured to provide emergency housing and relief, an operational structure not present in Homeland Security. The money is not coming out of FEMA's budget. It is a program that originally started back in the Regan era. The funny thing is that the Regan era program was expanded to include immigrants by Trump. The current program as it sits now, is spending money on immigrants because Trump expanded its scope. Here is the bill. It was actually fought against by Democrats.
Biden continued to fund it when he got into office and he actually got more money into it than Trump had. Biden has continued to fund the program with ever increasing amounts and Congress has seen fit to approve these appropriations in the ongoing budget bills, including the latest bill to divert the government shutdown.
But none of the comments will really matter to each other. Some will take the data and see it one way and others will take the data and see it another way. They each see the data through a lens colored by layers of presuppositions and viewpoints. As Pilate said, "Quid est veritas?"
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