Homeland Security and Senator Spar Over Moving Funds from FEMA to Immigrant Detention

With Hurricane Florence headed for landfall in the Carolinas, an Oregon senator on Tuesday night accused the Homeland Security Department of inappropriately transferring $10 million from disaster response to detention centers needed for the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley on MSNBC’s “Rachel Maddow Show” unveiled a document known as a “Transfer and Reprogramming” notification, as reported by The Washington Post and the Huffington Post, calling the shift in funds a scandal. “At the start of hurricane season when American citizens in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are still suffering from FEMA’s inadequate recovery efforts-the administration transferred millions of dollars away from FEMA,” Merkley said in a statement.