DHS transferred $169 million from other programs to ICE for migrant detention

Source: nbc




4-6 minutes

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The department has the authority to move funds around internally with the approval of Congress and transfers are not unusual. The total DHS budget for fiscal 2018 was $65 billion; FEMA's total budget was $15.5 billion.

DHS spokesperson Tyler Houlton tweeted Tuesday night that, "Under no circumstances was any disaster relief funding transferred from @fema to immigration enforcement efforts. This is a sorry attempt to push a false agenda." He also said that the transferred money came from routine operating expenses and "could not have been used for hurricane response due to appropriation limitations."

On Wednesday, FEMA director Brock Long told Andrea Mitchell, chief foreign affairs correspondent for NBC News, that none of the $10 million transferred from FEMA to ICE came from the Disaster Relief Fund, saying that Merkley was "playing politics" ahead of Hurricane Florence.

"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.

However, money was taken from the response and recovery, preparedness and protection and mission support operations budgets, which are used to prepare for emergencies like Florence. Those FEMA budgets are for "training for all hazards, preparing our warehouses, making sure we have things ready to go so that we can pre-deploy like you see FEMA doing now," Moira Whelan, FEMA's former chief of staff for the office of Gulf Coast rebuilding, told Maddow on Wednesday. "Taking money away from that operation doesn't just harm [FEMA's hurricane response], it harms us with any disaster we face."........................

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/dhs-transferred-169-million-other-programs-ice-migrant-detention-n909016

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A few of the articles state that the Depts need Congressional approval to transfer funds but I have seen no followup to these comments

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titan @paintressone
1h1 hour ago
Replying to @NBCNews

Ummm, aren't these determent camps, the tents, the transportation etc., all being run by and the profits made by private companies? So the taxpayers pay for it, but the profits are gotten by private corporations.
0 replies 1 retweet 2 likes

GoBluWave

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? @barbn1943
1h1 hour ago
Replying to @NBCNews @nurseylu

How can this all happen without the American people knowing?
0 replies 0 retweets 1 like

Kevin
? @kevin_cracknell
2h2 hours ago

Replying to @NBCNews

That's a lot of cash to be transferring without congressional approval.
0 replies 0 retweets 1 like

Colorado Born & Raised
? @AreUKiddingMe33
2h2 hours ago

Replying to @NBCNews

Remember that whole premise behind Trump's efforts toward getting the undocumented immigrants out our country was because they were costing us so much money.

You can cut the irony with a knife.
0 replies 0 retweets 1 like

Jeff Reynolds
? @JeffRey77925462
2h2 hours ago

Replying to @NBCNews

Trump’s dominoes continue to fall!