At the beginning of summer, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Mayorkas said during a briefing with the Associated Press that FEMA was “tremendously prepared” and “this is what we do”, not only for hurricanes and wildfires but also extreme heat. This contradicts an additional statement Mayorkas made on Wednesday, October 2, 2024:

“We are expecting another hurricane hitting. We do not have the funds. FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season“.

FEMA has tried to debunk claims that they are running out of money, but haven’t actually addressed Mayorkas’ statement, instead answering other strawman questions that nobody is asking.

From their Rumor Response Page:

The specific question is “Does FEMA have enough funding for beyond the hurricane Helene disaster?”. Mayorkas’ statement on the matter is the only answer we can find, and was made only days prior to the writing of this fact-check.

While it may be true that the migrant funding account is separate from the funding account for FEMA assisting with disasters, money is fungible, and any money allocated for migrants could obviously be repurposed for assisting US citizens at any time, most especially during a disaster.

Keep in mind that it could be possible that Congress or other rules or regulations may prevent FEMA from quickly re-purposing funds in that way, but obviously any of those rules or regulations, or the surrounding legal documents in connection with the funding allocation for migrants could have provided the language to permit quick reallocation for use in assisting US citizens during a crisis or disaster. Either way, the inability to re-purpose those funds is a deliberate decision made by whoever is granting the money or whoever is spending it.

Although funding for government agencies can be very complex, detailed, and nuanced, there are three figures that stand out from FEMA’s own website:

The SSP program is used for “services associated with noncitizen migrant arrivals in their communities.”

In 2024 FEMA announced in a press release that they spent more than 780M through the SSP program in 2023.
In 2024 DHS allocated 640.9 million USD to FEMA for the same purpose.
In 2024 FEMA was awarded an additional 380 million USD for the same purpose.

780 + 640.9 + 380 = 1.8 Billion USD.