DHS Chief Noem ‘Clawed Back’ $59 Million FEMA Allocated to House Illegal Aliens in NYC Hotels
The Trump administration has retrieved the $59 million the Federal Emergency Management Agency allocated last week to house illegal aliens in hotels in New York City.
“I have clawed back the full payment that FEMA deep state activists unilaterally gave to NYC migrant hotels,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote on X on Wednesday.
“FEMA was funding the Roosevelt Hotel that serves as a Tren de Aragua base of operations and was used to house Laken Riley’s killer,” Noem wrote, referring the Jose Antonio Ibarra, an illegal alien from Venezuela who was found guilty in November of murdering Riley, a Georgia nursing student. Tren de Aragua is a Venezuela-based gang.
“Mark my words,” Noem wrote, “there will not be a single penny spent that goes against the interest and safety of the American people.”
On Monday morning, Elon Musk shared on X that the Department of Government Efficiency, an agency established to root out government waste, “discovered that FEMA sent $59M LAST WEEK to luxury hotels in New York City to house illegal migrants.”
DHS later confirmed that FEMA had allocated the money for the housing of illegal aliens, and on Tuesday announced the termination of the four FEMA employees responsible.
“Effective immediately, FEMA is terminating the employment of four individuals for circumventing leadership to unilaterally make egregious payments for luxury NYC hotels for migrants,” according to a statement from a DHS spokesperson.
The four employees being fired include FEMA’s chief financial officer, two program analysts, and a grant specialist,” according to the DHS spokesperson.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday called for the termination of FEMA in a post on Truth Social.
“FEMA spent tens of millions of dollars in Democrat areas, disobeying orders, but left the people of North Carolina high and dry,” Trump wrote of the Tar Heel State residents whose lives were upended last fall by Hurricane Helene. “It is now under review and investigation. The Biden-run FEMA has been a disaster. FEMA should be terminated! It has been slow and totally ineffective. Individual states should handle storms, etc., as they come. Big savings, far more efficient!!!”
During a visit Saturday to western North Carolina to review the progress of the recovery efforts and the damage that still remains from Helene, Noem said major changes might be coming to FEMA.
The Trump administration may eliminate “a lot of what FEMA is at the federal level and giving the authority, the dollars, and the money to the states so that they can deploy that,” she said.
On Jan. 24, Trump signed an executive order establishing the Federal Emergency Management Agency Review Council to review FEMA’s effectiveness in responding to natural disasters and to recommend needed changes to the agency.
“This task force will be looking at all those opportunities to make sure that those that are closest to these communities have the opportunity to make the decisions in how they respond,” according to Noem.
