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?"
>>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.<<
Not that you don’t already know this, but there are no unbiased sources. I find it much more useful to know the bias of the source (which does take a lot of time, but worth it, IMO) when reading anything at that source.
As an extreme example, if Blaze media starts railing on Harris, that’s more or less par for the course. If Vox does, that makes me look closer at what they are saying. The opposite would be true if they were going after Trump.
Knowing what the Dispatch is (and what it isn’t) allows people to be able to better judge the content and context of material published by them.
Unfortunately, much more so than years ago, along with understanding the lean of sources, today you also have to evaluate how much they publish that’s just out-and-out not true. That makes our job as readers that much harder, but that’s still preferable to just finding a set of publications you mostly agree with, and then just blindly accepting whatever they publish. I hate having to read everything with a jaundiced eye, but that’s the state of our media today.
Dave Barnhart
If you do a Google search on the Dispatch, you will find this tagline on the link to their website: The Dispatch: Unbiased News & Informed Conservative...
I am not suggesting that all their news is bias, I am simply pointing out that:
Unfortunately, much more so than years ago, along with understanding the lean of sources, today you also have to evaluate how much they publish that’s just out-and-out not true. That makes our job as readers that much harder, but that’s still preferable to just finding a set of publications you mostly agree with, and then just blindly accepting whatever they publish. I hate having to read everything with a jaundiced eye, but that’s the state of our media today.
I am not convinced that there are any sources that truly have unbiased news today. That does not mean that they do not have anything of value to offer, but it does mean we have to read from a variety of sources to find the complete story and often each source has an element of truth to it but brings that element in a way that doesn't always give the full picture. Even as we try to do our due diligence, we must recognize that we will not always have the full story.
I can bend, I guess, on whether the funds were part of one category or another, and I can concede that some such use was started by President Trump, but what I'd hope we would all agree on is that federal funds ought not be used to resettle illegal immigrants in the U.S., period. Definitely some for genuine refugees and asylum seekers, yes, but we have the category of "illegal immigrants" for a reason, and that reason is to make sure we approve of who's coming here, and who is not approved. The nation has no pressing need, for example, for more hardened criminals, or (absent extenuating circumstances) those carrying infectious diseases, or those who will be a burden on the social safety net/welfare.
On the other issue, that of bias, one of the strongest indicators I know of horrible bias is when a news source denies a bias. Those who admit "I've got such and such a worldview" tend to be a lot more honest in these regards than those who deny it affects how they work.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
I agree on the use of funds, but this is the root of the immigration issue. We do not have a great comprehensive immigration policy. We keep wanting a president to fix this, but then we have these types of funds being voted on my Congress. Why Congress funds this stuff is beyond me.
What frustrates me is that we have leaders that keep spouting misinformation to push their agenda. I don't disagree with the root of the agenda, but we don't need to stoop to lies. When a government agency gets handed a bunch of money and they have a mandate to spend the funds, why are we blaming FEMA and not look at the deeper issue here. I think both candidates are not doing a good job in really communicating about a comprehensive plan and instead of just playing to their bases.
Yesterday our South Dakota senator, Mike Rounds, was on a local radio station and he said that they went back and looked and that FEMA "still" has $20 billion to spend now. FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell has also said that they have enough funds available. My question is why did Secretary of Homeland Security Mayorkas say that they were out of money? Who was giving misinformation, the senator or the secretary?
I appreciated the following article about how the funds were spent that I will link on the subject as well. They pointed out that both political parties were to blame and they used the term "allegations" rather than stating that something was a "fact."
How FEMA got into the illegal immigrant business, and who is covering it up | Just The News
If you search the subject on freespoke, you will get links to a variety of sources that speak about it and they put notations to say if the source is right, left, or middle. It is a bit helpful, but we have to be aware that they will have their own bias about what is right left or center. Further our own bias will cause us to question their judgment. Still, I thought it was worth sharing the link:
It is on both parties. The problem is also in how we do funding bills and appropriations.
Discussion