Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is facing a new firestorm of criticism for claiming FEMA is running out of disaster funds, while the DHS inspector general released a report saying FEMA is sitting on unused, unspent funds amounting to at least $8.3 billion sits.

On October 2, Mayorkas said: “We expect another hurricane. We don’t have the resources. FEMA does not have the resources to get through the season and what lies ahead.”

This new controversy is surfacing as Hurricane Milton strengthens to a Category 4 and massive evacuations are underway in Florida, which like much of the Southeast is still reeling from Hurricane Helene.

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Flooding damaged a car in front of Ichiban Restaurant in Biltmore Village across from Biltmore Estate following Hurricane Helene on October 1, 2024 in Asheville, North Carolina. (Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)

But analysts say FEMA cannot draw on unspent funds from long-ago crises, leaving money frozen as Hurricane Helene reportedly still leaves 600 people missing, at least 220 dead and entire towns wiped off the map. Helene is the most catastrophic hurricane to hit the United States since Katrina in 2005.

Budget experts warn that this new firestorm shows that FEMA has been turned into a slush fund that the agency and the Biden-Harris White House can spend as they please.

An August 2024 report from the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general states: “As of October 2022, FEMA estimated that 847 disaster declarations with approximately $73 billion in unliquidated funds remained outstanding.” The report also states that ” $8.3 billion in unliquidated liabilities” were “for disasters in 2012 or earlier” that analysts said could be returned to help people now struggling to survive in disasters.

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Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas holds a press conference at a U.S. Border Patrol station in Eagle Pass, Texas, on January 8, 2024. (Getty Images)

The IG report agrees, saying, “More than $7 billion in unliquidated funds… could potentially be returned to the disaster relief fund.”

Jeremy Portnoy of the watchdog group Open the Books points out that the way FEMA has it set up, the agency has set grants that it must use during and before a “benefit period.” This means that the funds are tied up for this period.

But the inspector general’s report finds that FEMA extended the deadlines for $7 billion in grants by up to 16 years, sometimes without justification. For example, FEMA is still sitting on $4.5 billion in unused, frozen funds for Superstorm Sandy, which occurred 12 years ago in 2012. FEMA officials must justify and explain in writing why they are extending the deadlines, but it is unclear what they are saying to justify freezing funds for so long.

The IG report also finds that FEMA officials extend spending programs based on “subjective” criteria and that “as a result, the longer a program remains open, the potential risk for fraud, waste and abuse increases.”

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A washed out road on September 27, 2024 in Boone, North Carolina. (Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)

FEMA has responded to a record number of storms. Last year there were 28 storms in the U.S. that caused more than $1 billion in damage, and so far in 2024 the $1 billion threshold has been reached 19 times. FEMA has reportedly nearly run out of money in its disaster relief fund nine times since 2001.

Republicans in Congress are already arguing over the Biden-Harris administration’s response to Hurricane Helene. Government documents show that FEMA spent $1.1 billion on housing and assisting illegal immigrants. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-R-S.C., introduced a bill to end the FEMA housing program for illegal migrants.

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The question arises: Is the disaster agency FEMA, which the Biden-Harris White House transformed into a border crisis relief agency, a tacit admission that the manufactured border crisis is really a disaster?