The Federal Emergency Management Agency is withholding more than $300 million in emergency preparedness grants from states until they can prove that their population estimates, used to calculate award amounts, do not include people who have been deported from the United States.
A group representing state emergency management agencies called it “a never-before-seen provision” with the effect of “further delaying resources intended to strengthen disaster preparedness and emergency response.”
Under the law governing the way these grants are allocated, the U.S. Census Bureau is the specified data source, leaders of the National Emergency Management Association wrote in a memo shared with The New York Times.
FEMA officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday. An automatic reply said the current shutdown of the federal government could delay a response.
It’s unclear how states are supposed count the number of deported immigrants, when in some cases that figure is changing daily. In states with large populations, it’s also unclear if that number would make a meaningful change in the overall size of a grant amount.
The action is the latest by FEMA, part of the Department of Homeland Security, to upend how states prepare for and respond to disasters. In recent months, after President Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem declared that states should bear more responsibility for disaster management, the administration has slowed or altered applications for numerous grants.
That’s led state officials and elected leaders to complain that federal disaster aid has become slow and unpredictable. Some have objected to cuts to programs that help equip states, cities and counties to better withstand extreme weather.
The new grant requirement also demonstrated how immigration issues, a top priority for Noem and the administration, are bleeding into other policy arenas.
As of August, data show the administration was on pace to deport more than 400,000 people during the first year of Trump’s second term. Administration officials last month shared higher numbers, projecting 600,000 deportations within a year.
CNN first reported on the changes to the emergency preparedness grant program.
FEMA’s Emergency Management Performance Grant Program, with a $319.5 million budget for fiscal year 2025, helps states and territories improve their readiness for and resilience to extreme weather by paying for things like sirens and other emergency warning systems, as well as for reports assessing responses to previous disasters and plans to mitigate disaster effects. How much each state and territory receives is largely based on its share of the total U.S. population.
Now, states will also have to calculate how many residents have been deported in order to receive the grants. In North Carolina, for example, emergency management officials are working with a state demographer to develop a method for gathering deportation data, said Brian Haines, a spokesman for the emergency management division at the North Carolina Department of Public Safety. The state was slated to receive $8.6 million through the program.
At the same time, emergency managers across the country are grappling with changes to other FEMA programs, including initiatives focused on helping states and cities prevent and respond to acts of terrorism. With little notice or explanation, the agency shortened some grants from three years to one and changed the amounts of money states could expect to receive, according to the memo from the National Emergency Management Association.
“No notice was given to recipients by DHS/FEMA, making proper planning, good stewardship of taxpayer dollars, and realignment of programmatic requirements extremely challenging,” NEMA officials wrote in the memo. “Furthermore, these grants are statutorily required to be distributed based on risk and it remains unclear what risk methodology was used.”
Scott Dance is a Times reporter who covers how climate change and extreme weather are transforming society.
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