FEMA launches review of migrant shelter aid, suggesting smuggling laws were violated
The Trump administration has launched a review of organizations that provide temporary housing and other aid to migrants, suggesting they may have violated a law used to prosecute smugglers.
The Department of Homeland Security has 'significant concerns' that federal grants used to address a surge of migration under former President Joe Biden were used for illegal activities, wrote Cameron Hamilton, acting administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
His letter, dated Tuesday and obtained by The Associated Press, asks recipients of grants from FEMA's Shelter and Services Program to provide names and contact information for migrants served and 'a detailed and descriptive list of specific services provided' within 30 days. The letter says funding will be withheld during the review.
While it doesn't explicitly threaten criminal prosecution, it raises concerns that recipients may have violated U.S. Criminal Code Section 1324, a felony offense against bringing people across the border illegally or transporting them within the United States. It also says executive officers must sign sworn statements that they have no knowledge or suspicions of anyone in their organizations violating the smuggling law.
FEMA did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Wednesday.
The demand appears to be a new salvo against organizations that provide food, housing and travel aid to people who cross the border. Migrants often arrive exhausted, low on money and unsure how to navigate on their own through bus stations and airports.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican who was at odds with the Biden administration over immigration and is closely aligned with the Trump White House, took a similar tack against migrant aid groups but was blocked in court.
FEMA's Shelter and Services Program awarded $641 million to dozens of state and local governments and organizations across the country in the 2024 fiscal year to help them deal with large numbers of migrants who crossed the border from Mexico. They include the cities of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Denver, as well as the United Way of Miami, the San Antonio Food Bank and several branches of Catholic Charities.
It was unclear if any any governments received the letters, but the Trump administration has fiercely criticized states, counties and cities that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Last month, it sued Chicago over laws that it said thwarted federal law enforcement.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NBC News
an hour ago
- NBC News
Trump, in reversal, may exempt farms and hotels from immigration raids
President Trump said in a social media post on Thursday that he is willing to exempt the agriculture and hotel industries from his nationwide immigration crackdown. The surprise move came after executives in both industries complained to Trump about losing reliable, longtime immigrant workers in immigration raids and struggling to replace them. 'Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,' Trump wrote. 'In many cases the Criminals allowed into our Country by the VERY Stupid Biden Open Borders Policy are applying for those jobs," Trump added. "This is not good. We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!' The New York Times reported the following day that a senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement official had ordered a pause in immigration raids of agricultural businesses, meat packing plants, restaurants and hotels. The senior ICE official also advised agents to stop arresting undocumented people who are not known to have committed a crime. Instead, agents were told to investigate and detain undocumented people with criminal backgrounds, according to the New York Times. In response to a question from NBC News regarding Trump's pause, Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin did not dispute it. 'We will follow the president's direction and continue to work to get the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens off of America's streets," McLaughlin said in a statement. An immigration crossroads The potentially significant change in the administration's approach to immigration comes as Trump faces a political crossroads. Immigration raids in Los Angeles sparked days of violent protests there and helped fuel sweeping anti-Trump protests nationwide on Saturday. At the same time, Trump repeatedly promised his supporters during the 2024 campaign that he would deport a million people a year, the largest mass deportations in U.S. history. To meet that goal, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller demanded last month that ICE arrest at least 3,000 undocumented people a day. Three former DHS officials told NBC News that ICE officials will have to significantly increase raids of large workplaces nationwide to meet those goals. Those sites include farms, meat-packing plants, hotels and restaurants — the industries that Trump appears to have exempted. One former ICE official said that only raids on 'construction, dairy [and] meat processing facilities, carpet mills' would result in the large number of detentions Miller has demanded. 'It's these low-wage jobs, that is where you get the numbers,' the former official said. During the 2024 campaign and since taking office, Trump has dismissed warnings from experts that such large-scale deportations would lead to worker shortages in the industries he is apparently exempting now. But groups that support Trump's crackdown expect him to keep his promise. 'They should be going after them,' said Ira Mehlman, spokesperson for Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that supports a crackdown on undocumented workers. ' I don't think there is going to be a huge swath of the country that will be upset if they bust these companies, if they are employing illegal immigrants and passing on the cost to everyone else.' Targeting slaughterhouses For years, slaughterhouses have been one of the industry's best known for relying on newly arrived immigrant labor, in part, due to the difficult and dangerous nature of the work. And many slaughterhouses are located in red states scattered throughout the Midwest and Southeast. Texas alone has almost 500 meat and food processing plants, according to USDA data. Earlier this week, ICE agents raided a locally owned slaughterhouse in Omaha, Nebraska and arrested at least 80 undocumented workers, according to local Hartmann, a spokesperson for Glenn Valley Foods, said in a statement that federal agents searched the company's facility 'for persons believed to be using fraudulent documents to gain employment.' He said that the company strives to operate within the law, that it is cooperating with agents and that it 'is not being charged with any crime.' But so far large slaughterhouses have not been consistently targeted by ICE around the country. Since Trump took office in January, ICE's workplace enforcement raids appear to have largely targeted smaller businesses such as a roofer in Bellingham, Washington, a Mexican restaurant in Harlingen, Texas and a small equipment manufacturer in South Dakota. One of the largest workplace raids to date — which yielded more than 100 arrests —was of a construction site in Tallahassee overseen by a privately-owned Florida-based construction company. Larry Stine, an employment attorney who represents some of the largest meat-packing plants in the Southeastern United States says his clients are 'terrified' of a possible raid and have been actively conducting audits of their employees' paperwork. Few construction industry raids Trump did not mention an exemption for the construction industry, which also employs large numbers of immigrant workers. So far, though, the construction industry has experienced relatively few ICE raids, industry officials said. Brian Turmail, vice president of public affairs for the Associated General Contractors of America, said that to date, he is only aware of sporadic reports of construction-site raids, such as one in Tallahassee on May 29 where more than 100 allegedly undocumented individuals were detained. The contractors' association continues to prepare members for how to respond if the pace of enforcement actions increases. 'We've been reposting compliance information now that it's a bit more real,' Turmail said. Turmail said he remains confident that the president is sensitive to the needs of the construction industry, whose decades-long workforce shortage has only grown more acute in recent years. It's one reason why construction costs have been surging, he said, something that, in turn, has resulted in construction spending declining year on year for the first time since 2019. 'Between higher labor and higher material costs, it's putting developers on the sidelines because projects don't pencil out anymore,' Turmail said. Members of the contactors' association remain hopeful that the administration's promises to reorient more of the workforce toward vocational skills will turn into federal spending to do so. Turmail predicted that worker shortages will persist and likely worsen if the immigration crackdown continues. One way the administration could help address them, he added, would be creating ways for construction workers to enter the country legally. 'Even if we got all the funding we wanted, we'd still need to also find some temporary lawful pathways for people to come in and work in construction,' Turmail said. Democrats say Trump's campaign promises of millions of mass deportations are hitting economic realities. John Sandweg, who served as ICE director during the Obama administration, said that to maintain its 3,000 arrests per day quota, the Trump administration would have to raid factories owned by large corporations. 'No doubt some Fortune 500 will get hit,' he said.
Spectator
an hour ago
- Spectator
Bibi has run rings around Trump
Donald Trump likes to see himself as the Great Negotiator but on this occasion Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, appears to have outplayed him. Since April, the Israeli leader had been pressurising Trump and his White House aides to give him the green light for a large-scale attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. While Netanyahu was reassured by his military advisers that Israel could go it alone to target Iran's four nuclear sites, he wanted not just US backing but also American firepower to achieve what Trump and his predecessors all agreed on: that Iran must never be allowed to build a nuclear bomb. However, Trump entered the White House for his second term on a no-war ticket. He announced his intention to bring the war in Ukraine to an end and sent his special envoy and billionaire friend Steve Witkoff to pave the way and to divide up his spare time to sort out the war in Gaza, too. Neither of these objectives have yet to bear fruit. The nuclear challenge presented by Iran was also high on Trump's list. But he made it clear his priority was to be a peacemaker. He wanted to avoid conflagration. This was a message that clearly didn't go down well with Netanyahu who apparently told every American official who came to Jerusalem and in every phone call to the White House that this was the moment, the unique moment, when Iran's nuclear sites could be bombed before it was too late. Netanyahu and his complex operational plan to attack Iran, codenamed Operation Rising Lion, which had taken months, if not years, to develop and hone, was ready to launch two months ago. But Trump demurred. He wanted Witkoff to keep going with diplomatic efforts. He made his case to Netanyahu earlier this week when he said he wanted Witkoff to complete his round of negotiations with the Iranians in Oman. One more meeting to give peace a chance had been set for Sunday. However, Trump was becoming increasingly aware that his appeals were falling on deaf ears. Operation Rising Lion was as good as set in stone. Mossad agents who had covertly entered Iran were in position to launch deadly drone attacks on the homes of the top hierarchy of Iranian generals and nuclear scientists. The call between Trump and Netanyahu on Thursday was, by the sound of it, a one-way declaration by the Israeli prime minister. Israel was going to bomb Iran, and he hoped Trump would not stand in his way. Trump came away from that conversation, knowing that within hours 200 Israeli jet fighters and bombers would be hitting pre-selected targets in Iran. It was a fait accompli. There was nothing Trump could have done. He had been out-negotiated. In one way, it was his fault. He had set a timetable of 60 days for Iran to reach a diplomatic deal to resolve the nuclear crisis. Thursday was the last day of Trump's own timeline. It was a gift for Netanyahu. All he had to do was remind Trump of his own deadline and then push the button for Operation Rising Lion. There has been no transcript of the Thursday phone call. But Marco Rubio, secretary of state and acting national security adviser, confirmed that Washington had been notified of the imminent attack on Iran. After the attack began, a further statement was made which emphasised that the US played no role in the strikes. The challenge for Trump now is whether the US should switch from this non-participant position to being a full player. Only the US possesses the type of weapon system capable of penetrating the concrete and reinforced steel to reach the underground facilities where Iran carries out its most sensitive and critical nuclear research and development programmes. Even the US Air Force's 30,000lb Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) dropped by B-2 stealth bombers would have difficulty detonating close enough to these facilities, some of which are half a mile down. However, MOP would have a better chance of actually reaching Tehran's most secret underground plants. So far, Israel has caused extensive damage but largely to surface laboratory facilities., as well as Iran's air defence systems. The greatest achievement of Operation Rising Lion so far has been the killing by Mossad of so many high-powered generals and nuclear scientists. That alone will set back Iran's nuclear programme. The question for Trump is whether he has the appetite for taking on Iran once and for all. At present he has adopted a different line: warning Tehran to grab the diplomatic route before facing annihilation. However, if Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader, refuses to send his diplomats to meet with Witkoff in Oman and focuses only on military retaliation against Israel, Trump might find himself forced to do what Netanyahu has been urging on Washington for a long time: to join with Israel in totally destroying Iran's nuclear programme. If that is what happens, Netanyahu will have achieved his greatest legacy: picking his moment and the right American president to end the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.
Reuters
2 hours ago
- Reuters
Greenland is a European territory, says French foreign minister
PARIS, June 15 (Reuters) - Greenland is a European territory and it is normal that Europe and France show their interest, French Foreign Minister Jean Noel Barrot told RTL radio on Sunday when asked about French President Emmanuel Macron's visit to the Arctic island. Macron visits Greenland on Sunday, in a show of solidarity with Denmark that is meant to send a signal of European resolve after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to take over the island.
