Tuberville criticizes FEMA’s Hurricane Helene response; agency says claims false - al.com

Skip to ArticleSet weatherBack To Main MenuCloseQuick Look-Change your current location »Current -Mostly SunnyTonightLow -Mostly SunnyTomorrowHigh -Mostly SunnyView full weather reportBirminghamHuntsvilleMobileMontgomeryTuscaloosaAnniston/GadsdenBeachesAlabamaMore local news for Birmingham, Huntsville and Mobile – Start Today for $5NewsTuberville criticizes FEMA’s Hurricane Helene response; agency says claims falseUpdated: Oct. 08, 2024, 11:14 a.m.|Published: Oct. 05, 2024, 3:37 p.m.Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., has been critical of the Biden administration's Hurricane Helene relief efforts. The senator has taken to social media and Fox to express his displeasure and make some claims that FEMA denies.  (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)APBy Lawrence Specker | lspecker@al.comAlabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville has added his voice to those leveraging criticism of FEMA’s Hurricane Helene response into presidential-election politics, though some of his points are open to dispute.“We give $20 billion a year to FEMA and unfortunately they have drained everything dry with all the illegal aliens coming in,” Tuberville said in a segment on “Fox Business Live.” “We spent $200 billion on Ukraine. We spend $2,500 a month on all illegal aliens and we’re only giving these people that have lost everything $750 one-time payments. Same thing happened in Maui. These people in the White House right now could care less about the American citizens. They are just out trying now to just make sure that they look good through all this, but the people in the Carolinas in Tennessee are hurting and hurting very bad.”The senator shared the video Friday on X, adding that Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden “are quick to throw BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars to Ukraine or illegal aliens, yet when Americans are in trouble, they are nowhere to be seen. Americans are hurting NOW. We need someone in the White House who will put the needs of American citizens FIRST, not last.”To some extent, the remarks simply question spending priorities. In theory, allocating less money to Ukraine support (or any other outlay) and more to FEMA is a balance that Congress could have struck via its various spending measures.FEMA leadership and other officials insist the agency hasn’t run out of money. FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell and others such as Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas have repeatedly said the agency can meet immediate needs but might not have enough to get through hurricane season. On a website set up to combat rumors around storm relief, FEMA says its Disaster Relief Fund “has enough funding to support Hurricane Helene efforts and FEMA has what it needs for immediate response and recovery efforts.”That’s a change from late September, when Congress passed a three-month continuing resolution as Helene loomed. It provided money to keep federal agencies, including FEMA, open through Dec. 20. FEMA said the continuing resolution allowed it “to resume funding for more than 2,400 projects across the country” after being under the constraints of “Immediate Needs Funding” restriction.Tuberville said he voted against the continuing resolution generally because he thought it was “setting us up for a massive omnibus at the end of the year” and that “to save this country, we have to turn off the spending faucet.”While the continuing resolution provided money to keep FEMA going, it did not include an additional allocation to the Disaster Relief Fund that some had wanted to see. Critics said that without the additional funding, FEMA would be ill-prepared for additional disasters.Answering questions at a Tuesday briefing, Biden said he expected that it would be necessary to ask Congress for a supplemental allocation for disaster response, but that no decision had been made on calling for a special session.As of Saturday, the National Hurricane Center was predicting that Tropical Storm Milton could head eastward across the Gulf of Mexico and into the Florida peninsula, possibly as a Category 2 hurricane, by midweek.On other points, Tuberville’s comments are questionable.Regarding the suggestion that immigrants had drained funds, FEMA says on its rumor site that “No money is being diverted from disaster response needs.” According to the site, “The funding for communities to support migrants is appropriated by Congress to Customs and Border Patrol – it has nothing to do with FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund.”In response to an inquiry from Al.com, Mallory Jaspers, communications director for Tuberville, confirmed that “Sen. Tuberville was saying that FEMA has spent money on illegal immigrants that could have been reallocated for disaster relief. FEMA allocated $364 million in FY23 and $650 million in FY24 to the ‘Shelter and Services Program,’ which provides ‘humanitarian services to noncitizen migrants following their release from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).’ … Perhaps if they had used those hundreds of millions of dollars for disaster relief for American citizens instead of writing a check to house illegal immigrants, they would have the money they need.”It is fact that FEMA has overseen the disbursement of $650 million via its Shelter and Services program in fiscal year 2024. But FEMA was never in a position to choose whether the money went to disaster relief. The Further Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2024, a federal budget measure that became law in March, specified that the $650 million would be transferred from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection budget to FEMA, with FEMA allocating it “to support sheltering and related activities provided by non-Federal entities, in support of relieving overcrowding in short-term holding facilities of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.”In short, the $650 million is CBP money that FEMA manages, routing it to entities such as nonprofits, local governments and Indian tribes to help them “provide humanitarian services to noncitizen migrants following their release from the Department of Homeland Security.”As for the claim that FEMA is only handing out $750 one-time payments, FEMA says that is false. The agency does offer rapid $750 payments via its Serious Needs Assistance program, which is intended as “an upfront, flexible payment to cover essential items like food, water, baby formula, breastfeeding supplies, medication and other emergency supplies.” It’s meant as a stopgap while FEMA assesses a recipient’s eligibility for more funds. “As your application continues to be reviewed, you may still receive additional forms of assistance for other needs such as support for temporary housing, personal property and home repair costs.”Relief comes in a variety of channels, and individual programs have their own restrictions. FEMA cautions upfront that it “cannot help with losses already covered by insurance,” so it is important for those in disaster areas to file insurance claims immediately.As for the suggestion that undocumented immigrants are allocated $2,500, that appears to echo a longstanding, widely debunked claim that the federal government has been giving them $2,200 a month. Jaspers cited an array of immigrant support programs, including the growing number of states provided access to health insurance, and several housing measures specific to New York City. The net was somewhat softer than Tuberville’s statement that “we spend $2,500 a month on all illegal aliens:” Jaspers said that “In some states, illegal aliens may be receiving up to $2,500 per month in benefits paid for by American taxpayers.”The Congressional Research Service said in a 2022 report that “Prior to 1996, there was no uniform rule governing which categories of noncitizens were eligible for which government-provided benefits and services, and no single statute governed related requirements. Noncitizen eligibility requirements, if any, were set forth in the laws and regulations governing the individual federal assistance programs.”However, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 changed that. According to the CRS report, the 1996 law and subsequent amendments establish that “unauthorized noncitizens are not ‘qualified aliens’ and thus are not eligible for most federal benefits.” The report says that the 1996 law also “bars unauthorized noncitizens from receiving most state and locally funded benefits.”The National Immigration Law Center says the law’s impact is broad. For example, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services alone has listed 31 programs that are barred from serving undocumented immigrants and others deemed “not qualified.” These include “Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), TANF [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families], Foster Care, Adoption Assistance, the Child Care and Development Fund, and the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program.”Since Hurricane Helene hit, President Joe Biden and other officials have detailed the federal response in series of statements.In a briefing on Tuesday, Biden said he had spoken with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and officials in Florida, South Carolina and Tennessee. The president said Helene was “not just a catastrophic storm; it’s a history-making storm.”FEMA chief Criswell already was in North Carolina, he said, and was going to stay in “Asheville and the Appalachia region for the foreseeable future.” The Federal Communications Commission, the National Guard, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Defense all were mobilizing to help, he said, and federal search-and-rescue teams were active in the region.Wednesday, the White House said Biden had directed the Department of Defense to deploy up to 1,000 active-duty soldiers to the region “to support the delivery of food, water, and other critical commodities.” They would join a variety of military elements, including helicopter crews, already helping move people and supplies in areas with destroyed roads and performing search and rescue missions. Also on Wednesday, Biden and Harris began touring the affected states.On Friday, FEMA provided some statistics about the response: “FEMA has already helped thousands of Hurricane Helene survivors jumpstart their recoveries with more than $110 million in federal assistance. More than 6,400 personnel from across the federal workforce are deployed, including FEMA staff. To date, FEMA has shipped over 13.2 million meals, more than 13.4 million liters of water, 157 generators and more than 492,000 tarps to the region.”By Friday, FEMA also had set up its web page to respond to some of the allegations. The page does not blame anyone in particular for what it refers to as rumors, but asserts the following, among other points:FEMA says it does not ask for donations or manage volunteers, so rumors that it is asking for cash donations, rejecting volunteers or confiscating donations are false. The agency says it advises that all donations and volunteers be handled by volunteer agencies such as those listed at the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster website. The site lists about 80 member organizations, ranging from the American Red Cross to agencies operated by numerous religious entities.Similarly, FEMA says it “does not conduct vehicle stops or handle road closures with armed guards – those are done by local law enforcement.”The Associated Press has reported that aside from the political back-and-forth over Helene response efforts, the storm has provided fodder for “extremist groups, disinformation agents [and] hucksters … who are exploiting the disaster to spread false claims and conspiracy theories.”Note: This story was updated Oct. 8 with additional detail from Tuberville’s office.More hurricane newsWhat coastal Alabama homeowners should know about hurricane-resistant Fortified roofsSouthern Living barbecue to benefit Hurricane Helene relief efforts‘They can control hurricanes!’ The science behind the science fictionThousands of patients reliant on IV nutrition face shortages from Helene, CVSHelene and Milton reveal Florida’s hopeless home insurance disaster
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They want America to fail. They're not even criticizing Harris, they're literally attacking FEMA to score political points. It's gross and couldn't be more obvious.