FEMA: Funding the Invasion

FEMA spent hundreds of millions to house illegals and fund the NGOs that are responsible for driving illegals into our country

We’ve written previously on the sheer immensity of the funding provided by our State Department and USAID to the NGOs that are directly engaged in funneling a non-stop flow of illegals into our country. The numbers are staggering - adding up to Billions annually. So when we began hearing conflicting talk of what FEMA did or didn’t spend on housing illegals we thought we’d take a quick look for ourselves.

As it turns out, FEMA disguises the funding which is done through at least two separate programs and it took a bit to find the programs on their website. The aggregate figures that we found are located in two primary categories under “FEMA Grants”.

The most obvious is FEMA’s “Shelter and Services Program (SSP)” - which FEMA describes as being “administered by the FEMA in partnership with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. SSP provides financial support to non-federal entities to provide humanitarian services to noncitizen migrants following their release from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).”

The amounts designated for illegals (just between the years 2024 and 2023) are huge: $650 million and $364 million respectively. Drop down on FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program page to “Annual Funding” in order to see the amounts we’re referencing and have listed in the table below:

The other section where we found large amounts of funding for illegals is under FEMA’s “Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP)” program. It’s actually a FEMA-funded program that likely receives additional support from other sources.

FEMA says “the [EFSP] program supplements and expands ongoing work of local nonprofit and governmental social service organizations to provide shelter, food and supportive services to individuals and families who are experiencing, or at risk of experiencing, hunger and/or homelessness.”

Sounds okay so far, right? But then FEMA tosses in this follow-on subclause: 

“The program may also receive funding to award to the National Board for distribution to local social service organizations that provide humanitarian relief to families and individuals encountered by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).”

We ran into the phrase “families and individuals encountered by the Department of Homeland Security” any number of times. We’d argue the word “illegals” would save FEMA some time. But then again, we’re not spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer funds on people who aren’t citizens of our country.

Dropping further down this same FEMA page brings us to a section called “Humanitarian EFSP for Organizations Assisting Migrants”. Included is a small table which lists the amounts of the funding. Unsurprisingly, the numbers are again huge:

FEMA casually lists grants of $715 million - three-quarters of a billion dollars - as though it’s an afterthought. The table also has a small footnote: “Last updated June 26, 2023” - meaning that the figures listed are only those that are publicly available through the first half of 2023.

The Emergency Food & Shelter Program (EFSP) is a FEMA-funded program that appears to receive allocations through Congress and other sources in addition to FEMA - so visibility is limited. It's also possible that the $425 million listed in 2023 was the total amount received for the full year.

Another item of note: Unlike the other grants that we found, there are no links to final recipients or a breakdown of how the amounts are spent for the Emergency Food & Shelter Program. FEMA does provide us with a link to the Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP) site - but it takes us to a password locked screen.

But one detail that site screen does show us is the organizations that must be the recipients of this portion of FEMA’s funding: United Way: The Jewish Federation, Catholic Charities USA; Salvation Army; The National Council of the Churches of Christ, and; The American Red Cross. All of the charities that we know have been funding the flow of illegals from Central America all the way through our borders - and throughout every corner of our country.

There is some confusion over what amounts, exactly, were allocated by FEMA to the EFSP program. In the “Regular EFSP in Assisting People Nationwide“ section, FEMA states that “The DHS Appropriations Act, 2023, appropriated $130 million to FEMA, which in turn awarded the money to the EFSP National Board to support local social service organizations aiding our nation’s hungry and homeless.”

But, and this is important, in another section FEMA says “Congress first appropriated funds for EFSP assistance specifically for support for families and individuals encountered by the Department of Homeland Security (EFSP-Humanitarian, or EFSP-H) in 2019 and the following amounts were awarded to the EFSP National Board.” The “following amounts” refer to the table we presented above.

To our eyes, it appears that FEMA provided $130 million under the standard assistance routinely provided to American citizens AND also provided $425 million to illegals at the border. Which makes things even worse. 

We admit our reading of this somewhat confusing page could be incorrect. But the wording “specifically for support for families and individuals encountered by the Department of Homeland Security” leaves zero doubt that the $425 million was entirely allocated to illegals regardless of origination. Again, here’s the page. See what you think.

Our math arrives at (as much as) $789 million in 2023 ($364mm under FEMA's SSP program and $425 under FEMA-funded EFSP). For 2024 we have at least $650 million - likely much higher as we have no figures past June 26, 2023 for funding allocated to EFSP. It’s also likely there’s more funds allocated from other programs as well. As we mentioned earlier, FEMA’s descriptive language regarding their programs often gets a bit…hazy.

One other item to note. Under FEMA’s “Shelter and Services Program,” links for details on program awards ARE included. Unfortunately, they’re also absolutely infuriating. Contained within the grant details are page after page of funding awards - with a large number of the awards going to Catholic Charities of America and their sub organizations.

Page 1 of FEMA’s 2023 SSP Grants:

Page 1 of FEMA’s 2024 SSP Grants:

The grant amounts vary widely. As do the recipients. But you get the point. Another factor that will certainly come forth at a later date: The enormous levels of fraud that are certain to result from these massive fundings of NGO’s, organizations and municipalities. We’ve already begun to hear some crazy stories from our sources on the ground. We’re 100% positive there’s much more to come on this matter.

It’s equally important to note that none of what we described above accounts for the BILLIONS sent directly from our State Department & USAID to these same NGO’s. Although the amounts that FEMA has paid to Catholic Charities and the other NGOs to fund the flow of illegals into our country are huge, what the State Department and USAID have “donated” is even worse.

Much of this comes from the funding that we are paying to the United Nations - $4.1 billion slated for 2024 - up from $3.4 billion in 2023. But there’s another even larger element to the UN Funding that often goes unreported.

The US also provides voluntary contributions to UN entities through accounts tied to the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and other Related Programs. Congress generally appropriates overall funding to these accounts, but it’s the executive branch that determines how the funds are actually allocated. 

For example, according to USAID, the United States contributed more than $7.4 billion to U.N. entities through global humanitarian accounts in FY2022, including Migration and Refugee Assistance, International Disaster Assistance, and Food for Peace - an amount that’s more than double the official UN contributions of $3.58 billion for that year.

When we first discovered that it was our own State Department that was doing the heavy lifting of funding the NGOs that were the source of illegals flowing into our country we had a hard time accepting what we were seeing. Complete and total betrayal by our State Department - using our own tax dollars against us.

A division within the State Department - the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration or PRM - gave the International Organization of Migration $1.0 billion in FYE 2023 alone. Samantha Power-run USAID gave the NGOs $420 million.

In other words, in addition to the generalized funding that we already provide to the UN, Biden’s State Department has been providing enormous amounts of funding to the hundreds of NGOs that have been setting up way-stations all along the routes from Latin America into the US. 

The Heritage Foundation's Mike Howell noted that these NGOs are also “involved in lobbying the Biden administration and our Congress to keep the border wide open… they're involved in D.C. making sure the border stays open through policy and support to the Biden administration. A lot of their staffers and people connected in those NGO networks are in the Biden administration.” 

Howell also singled out the Catholic Church, noting that “Catholic charities are a prime example. They're really the 800 pound gorilla when it comes to this. They are deeply involved in facilitating the travel of illegal aliens throughout the country.” The massive and ongoing donations directly from FEMA to Catholic Charities seems to back up his assertion.

Representative Lance Gooden is one of the few in Congress trying to do something about this problem. He introduced legislation to cut this shadow NGO funding and tried several times to obtain information from Homeland Security head Alejandro Mayorkas.

As Gooden noted, “NGOs receive hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars through federal grants to provide free food, lodging, and transportation for illegal aliens to be released anywhere they want in the United States. NGOs simply tell DHS how many illegal aliens they encounter, and funding can be awarded without any documentation or receipts” 

The hard truth is that we're the ones paying for the flow of illegals through massive federal subsidization of the hundreds of NGOs that set up waystations throughout all of Latin America. This is destroying our country. It’s also completely insane and has to be stopped.