Pulse: Federal Funds Should Favor Hurricane Victims Over Migrants, Foreign Wars

Hurricane Helene wreaked havoc in the southeast, making its way through South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia, resulting in significant loss of life and widespread destruction. The storm made landfall Sept. 26 in Florida, killing a confirmed 232 people, with hundreds still missing. Since then, the pain and suffering of this natural disaster have been multiplied by the Biden-Harris administration’s lackluster response. To date, however, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has failed to take responsibility for its failure. The Biden-Harris administration failed Helene’s victims and, by extension, the American people as a whole. Our informal online survey revealed that 89% of respondents STRONGLY AGREE that federal tax dollars SHOULD be prioritized to aid property owners affected by Hurricane Helene instead of funding foreign wars and illegal immigrants.

Last month, the LANDTHINK Pulse posed the following question to our audience: Should federal tax dollars be prioritized to aid property owners affected by Hurricane Helene instead of funding foreign wars and illegal immigrants?

Substantively, politically and personally, President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris had ample reason to step up in the aftermath of the destruction wrought by Hurricane Helene. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson slammed the Biden administration’s handling of Hurricane Helene relief efforts, calling the federal government’s response an “abject failure.”

Biden was vacationing in Delaware when the storm hit and glibly told reporters he had “commanded” the federal response by phone “for at least two hours,” hardly sufficient for an event this devastating. Harris, who at the time was hoping to be our next president, was initially content with a brief FEMA photo op in the storm’s aftermath. She was ripped by the media for “fake” optics. Only when it became a media talking point did Harris finally travel to a hard-hit part of the swing state of Georgia – an obviously political stop just weeks before Election Day.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp was one of many local officials who called out the administration for delaying much-needed federal aid. It took six days for the White House to activate a paltry 1,000 military members to help deliver assistance – even though three of America’s premier military divisions with critical search and rescue experience are based within just a few hours of the hardest-hit areas in the Carolinas and Georgia.

The administration should certainly have done a better job managing FEMA’s funding. According to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the agency is nearly broke after spending more than $600 million caring for illegal migrants nationwide.

FEMA doesn’t have enough money for hurricane victims because the Biden-Harris administration has flooded our country with illegal aliens and they’ve spent all of their money on them. This administration has granted over $1 billion to organizations that provide illegal aliens with transportation and housing services, instead of using that money for disaster relief.

Illegal immigrants who have entered the U.S. as part of the record-breaking migrant crisis are eligible for a range of services, assistance and benefits amid a complex network of federal, state and local programs and taxpayer-funded providers. There were 2.4 million migrant crossings in the U.S. in fiscal year 2023, a new record, and more than 7 million have entered since 2021. Another benefit to add is legal services for civil deportation hearings, a benefit that U.S. citizens do not receive. American taxpayers will see significant tax increases to pay for all these services given to people who aren’t supposed to be here.

There’s been a lot of disagreement in Congress and in the country about how the U.S. has and whether the U.S. should continue to financially support the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. For Ukraine, some taxpayers don’t think the U.S. should be giving any money to fight off Russia’s invasion. For Gaza, some taxpayers have concerns about how they might be funding weapons that have been used to kill civilians.

In the aftermath of Helene, it was rumored that FEMA even distributed aid based on demographic characteristics. They denied the rumor, but their own website says otherwise. The agency considers factors such as race, ethnicity, and English proficiency when granting aid. This reflects the Biden-Harris administration’s insistence since the very first day of the administration that “equity” would be its guiding principle.

FEMA’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI)-based formulas factor racial and minority status into “social susceptibility,” a main component of the National Risk Index score. This score helps FEMA determine which areas to prioritize for aid, and it could put predominantly white areas at a significant disadvantage.

In places like Buncombe County, North Carolina, officials reported at least 72 people died due to Helene, the largest death toll of any single county. But because Buncombe County has a nearly 90% white population, it has a “relatively low” NRI score, which could help explain why the agency’s aid hasn’t arrived in a timely manner.

FEMA also claims it has not allocated any money to illegal aliens over American citizens. FEMA’s “fact-check” page states: “Disaster Relief Fund money has not been diverted to other, non-disaster related efforts.”

After the comment made by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that FEMA does not have stable funding, the Committee on Homeland Security is investigating the Department of Homeland Security prioritization of its ability to adequately respond to natural disasters, lawmakers on the committee said in a letter to Mayorkas.

The simple truth is that FEMA’s spending reflects its DEI agenda. FEMA spent $1 billion on illegal alien services instead of disaster relief resources that could have mitigated the deadly impact of recent hurricanes.

The current radical liberal agenda has been putting Americans last and many are fed up, as last month’s poll shows. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) transferred $800 million from its FY2023 budget and an additional $650 million in FY2024 to FEMA for the Shelter and Services Program. This serves as a scheme by the Biden-Harris administration to further facilitate the open-border invasion of the U.S. by depleting border security resources, infusing left-wing NGOs with enormous taxpayer-provided funds to continue their efforts to resettle millions of noncitizens inside the United States.

Hurricane Helene caused between $30.5 billion and $53.6 billion in damage across 16 states.

Property damage

• Hurricane Helene damaged or destroyed more than 126,000 homes, 1,000 bridges and culverts, and more than 6,000 miles of roads

Infrastructure damage

• Hurricane Helene damaged or destroyed more than 160 water and sewer systems

Agricultural damage

Hurricane Helene caused billions of dollars in agricultural damage, including:

• Halting chicken processing plants
• Damaging flocks
• Downing pecan trees and timber crops
• Flattening cotton fields

Flooding

• Hurricane Helene caused the worst flooding in a century in North Carolina. In Spruce Pine, over 2 feet of rain fell from Tuesday through Saturday

Landslides

• Hurricane Helene caused 1,400 landslides

Other damage

• Hundreds of water rescues
• Some in Florida’s Big Bend lost nearly everything they owned
• In Asheville, North Carolina, the French Broad River crested at 24.67 feet, shattering the previous 1916 record

The damage from Hurricane Helene is roughly three times the $16.7 billion impact of Hurricane Florence in 2018.

President-elect Donald Trump is setting the scene for a confrontation between his incoming administration and Democratic officials across the US. He plans to quash undocumented migration through mass deportations and has said his vow has no “price tag.”

In a rally prior to the election, Trump said he would immediately implement “the largest deportation program in American history to get the criminals out.” The new Trump administration is expected to enact changes to lawful means of immigration, including H-1B visas, which enables migrants to come into the United States as guest workers.

President-elect Donald Trump has promised to end wars overseas. Trump’s election victory is impacting Ukraine even before he takes office again in January. Trump has criticized US aid to Ukraine and has suggested he’d strike a deal with Russia.

Over $6 billion in US assistance to Ukraine remains from April’s foreign aid package. Meanwhile, over the weekend Biden gave Ukraine permission to use the long-range missiles it’s supplied to strike inside Russia, according to multiple reports.

World leaders have reacted to Trump’s imminent return to office by renewing efforts to end the fighting, in ways that have been resisted in the past.

Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election has placed him in a position to enact his campaign promises on immigration policy and ending foreign wars. “We’re going to help our country heal,” Trump said in his victory speech.

Americans are expecting the entire country to be safer by getting the border under control and making the legalization process easier. He will position the USA to again take the lead on the world stage with peace through strength of our leaders.

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