FEMA whistleblower details 'waste' of taxpayer funds and staff waiting in hotels during Hurricane Helene

The federal government's disaster response agency has been painfully slow to deploy first responders to help Hurricane Helene victims and making things worse of the ground, multiple whistleblowers have alleged.

The bombshell allegations of mismanagement at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) come just days after the agency took a beating for its boss Alejandro Mayorkas admitting it will not be able to foot the bill for this historic hurricane season. 

A letter from a whistleblower to Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. details how the department has wasted and misappropriated funds in the wake of Helene and is now 'exacerbating the emergency.' 

The letter also alleges 'hundreds if not thousands' of first responders and service members have been 'without deployment orders' with some waiting around in hotels while others 'have sat idle' as Americans throughout the southeast are in dire need. 

'This news comes after FEMA has spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on migrants due to Border Czar Kamala Harris’ open border instead of prioritizing funding for Americans impacted by disasters,' Gaetz wrote in a scathing letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Sec. Mayorkas on Friday.

'My office has been in contact with whistleblowers in numerous emergency-management functions at the federal, state, and local levels, and they all point to the same critical mismanagement issues.'

'FEMA has wasted taxpayer funds misappropriated funds, and left other federal, state, and local responders without deployment orders on the ground,' Gaetz, a close ally of ex-President Donald Trump, wrote.

With over 200 Americans dead and the agency strapped for cash, FEMA's massive budget for illegal immigrants has come under scrutiny as a possible way to provide support to devastated U.S. citizens. 

Over the last two years, FEMA has handed out more than $1 billion taxpayer dollars to specifically support illegal migrants with housing.

But now there's no money to help out the 150,000 American citizens who have reached out for federal assistance after their homes were damaged by Hurricane Helene. 

'FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season,' Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas admitted on Wednesday.

But only last week Congress passed a funding bill for an additional $20 billion for the anticipated hurricane season. 

And the whistleblowers allege the department, despite receiving the recent funding, has been slow and ineffective in its response to Hurricane Helene. 

'As reported and further confirmed by my office, hundreds, if not thousands of service members were deployed by the Department of Defense to North Carolina and have sat idle, waiting for FEMA,' Gaetz writes. 

'We have confirmed FEMA employees deployed, on the clock, awaiting orders in hotels. FEMA pre-disaster aid was withheld, exacerbating the emergency.'

The Republican is demanding to know how much money DHS and FEMA are spending on non-citizens vs. American citizens. 

'Of FEMA’s total budget for FY 2024, what portion of funds can be guaranteed to have been spent solely on American citizens, and what portion of funds was or may have been spent on noncitizens?' Gaetz asks.

'In FY 2024, what portion of funds in the Disaster Relief Fund have been spent on non-disaster-relief programs, such as providing services to illegal aliens or providing routine training to FEMA employees authorized out of general appropriations?'

He demanded answers from Mayorkas by October 11.