The Federal Emergency Management Agency is under increasing scrutiny over its spending on migrants and diversity initiatives in light of recent questions about its funding for disaster relief for Americans.
The issue sprang to the forefront after Category 3 Hurricane Milton ripped through the southeastern U.S., wreaking havoc on homes, infrastructure, and leaving many dead.
In the aftermath of that hurricane and with the end of hurricane season more than a month away, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters that FEMA may not have enough funds to finish out the hurricane season.
“We are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have,” Mayorkas told reporters. “We are expecting another hurricane hitting. FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season.”
Those comments sparked major backlash and sent the White House into damage control since FEMA spends hundreds of millions of dollars on helping resettle the influx of illegal immigrants, part of the border crisis under the Biden-Harris administration.
Former White House and Department of Homeland Security Brian Cavanaugh told The Center Square that FEMA has drifted from its mission of responding to natural disasters.
“FEMA’s core mission is to help Americans before, during, and after disasters, but recent efforts to prioritize diversity, equity and inclusion have begun to undermine that focus,” Cavanaugh, who is now a fellow at Heritage, told The Center Square. “By shifting resources toward hiring DEI advisors instead of emergency response professionals, we are losing sight of what FEMA was designed to do — respond quickly and efficiently to emergencies, regardless of identity. This shift in mission focus could delay critical response times and impact the effectiveness of disaster relief, putting lives at risk.
“Americans deserve a FEMA that prioritizes their safety and recovery, not one driven by DEI metrics.”
The White House and its defenders were quick to point out that funding for disaster relief is separate within FEMA from migrant and other funding, but critics insisted that Mayorkas’ comments highlighted misplaced priorities at FEMA and more broadly within the Biden-Harris administration.
On top of that, as The Center Square previously reported, FEMA is currently investing in diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, which it ranked as its number one goal in its most recent strategic report.
The second goal was climate resilience, followed by the third goal of being ready for emergencies.
“The White House is mismanaging our national agencies and priorities,” Chance Layton, spokesperson for the National Association of Scholars told The Center Square. “FEMA should be focused on helping Americans respond to and recover from national emergencies, not on partisan social engineering. The Kamala/Biden administration’s hyperfocus on DEI as a stand-in for illegal racial preferences actively harms Americans and remains a gross violation of our national principles.”
