The head of FEMA on Wednesday accused a Democratic senator of “playing politics” for claiming that the Trump administration had diverted $10 million from the agency to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to support immigration enforcement.
Brock Long, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, defended the transfer in an interview on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” saying that it had nothing to do with response efforts and that the agency spends billions of dollars to manage disasters. FEMA’s annual budget is estimated to be $15 billion.
“Right now, that money has nothing to do with what you see behind us,” he said in an interview from the FEMA response center in Washington. “It does not pay for this response, it is not coming out of the disaster relief fund, it has no impact on our efforts to be prepared for Hurricane Florence. It’s just, unfortunately, we have a congressman that is playing politics on the back of Florence. There’s no story there.”
The story broke Tuesday night on MSBNC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” when Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., alleged that money earmarked for disaster relief and emergency response efforts had been taken out of FEMA’s accounts and shifted to ICE.
The transfer occurred…
