Claims that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is not facing funding problems because of money spent to house illegal immigrants is an "outright lie," Rep. Greg Steube, whose state of Florida went through the double hurricane strikes of Helene and Milton, told Newsmax on Friday.
"This administration cares more about illegal immigrants in our country than they do American citizens who have been hit by a natural disaster," the Florida Republican told Newsmax's "Wake Up America" while commenting Thursday about Hurricane Milton's devastation in his state.
He noted that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas "said himself that FEMA was out of money because they're transferring money to house illegal immigrants."
But now, the White House is pivoting to say that complaints about FEMA is "disinformation," but "they're lying," said Steube.
"They moved money from FEMA and they used the money to house illegal immigrants," he said, "and now Secretary Mayorkas himself is saying they don't have money to fund FEMA."
Steube said there will be hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars in losses in his district alone after Wednesday's massive storm.
"There's going to be individual assistance, FEMA claims," he added. "If the money is not there, then Congress has to reappropriate it because this administration moved money around and paid and housed illegal immigrants, which I believe is completely anti-American."
And now, the decision to move money for immigrants has "caught up to them," he said. "We have Americans that are hurting and have gotten crushed by Helene and now Milton, and now they're trying to backtrack and say it's disinformation. It's a complete and outright lie."
The congressman told Newsmax that it is "heartbreaking" to see people who were trying to recover from Hurricane Helene get hit again by Milton.
"Obviously, the recovery now will spin into search and recovery to make sure that there are not people out that need to be rescued," he said. "They have to pull first responders after the winds get over 45 miles an hour. So early this morning, as the winds started to die down, they could respond to 911 calls."
The clean-up efforts will also be massive, as will restoring power and cellphone service, which was lost to several areas in the state because of the storm, said Steube, noting that most of his district is without service.
"I live in Sarasota and it was really bad throughout the night, but it's not too bad now," he said. "There's just stuff down everywhere. There are trees down. We had gotten a ton of rain leading up to this, so then the ground is really wet, so these big oak trees fall over, pine trees fall over."
He added that most people heeded the warnings to evacuate, especially after they saw the hit from Hurricane Helene.
"If they stayed in Siesta Key and watched their home flood, and they were in chest-high water in their house, I can guarantee you they left this time," said Steube.
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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