A political row erupted after Donald Trump claimed Americans hit hard by Hurricane Helene were missing out on emergency aid money because it was spent on migrants.

The blame game began Wednesday after U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), which he oversees, was strapped for cash for the rest of the hurricane season.

Trump and his allies expressed outrage that the agency had spent over $640 million (£487 million) housing migrants. But U.S. officials said the money came from a completely different disaster relief funding pot.

The White House called Trump’s claims “poison” and accused his fellow Republicans of spreading “blatant lies” about the response to the storm.

With less than a month to go until the White House election, Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris are neck and neck in a handful of swing states like storm-hit North Carolina and Georgia that will decide the vote.

Helene, the deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland since Katrina in 2005, hit the Southeast last week, killing at least 225 people and leaving hundreds more missing.

Both Trump and Vice President Harris have made trips to some of the affected states.

At an event in Evans, Georgia, on Friday, Trump said: “A lot of the money that was supposed to go to Georgia and to North Carolina and everyone else is going and is already gone.”

“For people who came into the country illegally, it has disappeared and no one has ever seen anything like it. That’s a disgrace.”

Fema received a budget from Congress — $640 million in the last fiscal year — to provide housing to immigrants applying for U.S. citizenship.

But the money came through a federal immigration agency, Customs and Border Protection.

It was issued through Fema’s Shelter and Services Program (SSP) and is a separate pot of money to the agency’s nearly $20 billion disaster relief fund used to respond to hurricanes and other natural disasters.

Fema’s disaster relief budget for the year expired at the end of September and the agency is currently on temporary funding while Congress negotiates a new annual budget.

Fema responded to Trump’s claim a dedicated fact check pageand a statement from the Department of Homeland Security.

“This is wrong,” Fema said in a statement. “No money will be diverted for disaster relief.”

To date, more than $45 million has been donated to communities affected by Hurricane Helene, the agency said.

Fema has also shipped more than 11.5 million meals and 12.6 million liters of water to Helene, Vice President Harris said Friday, adding that more than 5,600 federal personnel were on the scene.

But Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., posted on

Meanwhile, critics of Trump have pointed out that when he was president in 2019, $155 million was transferred from Fema’s operating budget to fund the deportation of migrants to Mexico.