The Homeland Security Department is pushing back against a Democratic U.S. senator's claim that the Trump administration transferred nearly $10 million from the government's disaster relief agency to immigration enforcement.
Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon said the administration was taking money from FEMA's "response and recovery" to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency at a time when Hurricane Florence is bearing down on the Southeast U.S. coast.
But DHS officials said the money was transferred from the department's unspent operational accounts for training, office supplies and headquarters costs. That funding cannot be spent on disaster response, they said. FEMA's annual budget is about $15 billion.
More than $4 million of the funds from FEMA are listed as "response and recovery" or "preparedness and protection" in the request. But the document says "mission impact is minimized as FEMA will curtail training, travel, public engagement sessions, IT security support and infrastructure maintenance."
The 40-page report also says that without the transfer of funds "ICE will not be able to fulfill its adult detention requirements" this year.
Sen. Merkley spoke to MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Tuesday night about how he obtained the documents.
"It means that just as hurricane season is starting...the administration is working hard to find funds for additional detention camps, and of course this is all part of the child separation policy, and that's how this information came into my hands because of my work on the issue of trying to stop the child separations," he said.
(The Associated Press, CBS News contributed to this report.)
Unbelievable? Yes. Reprehensible? Yes. But it’s true. Look for yourself: pic.twitter.com/O0SxI9p5ho
— Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) September 12, 2018
