Alarm in US over transfer of FEMA emergency workers to ICE during hurricane season

Tropical Storm Erin, which was located around 1,400 miles east of the northern Leeward Islands in the West Indies early Wednesday, could become a hurricane on Thursday, according to meteorologists’ forecasts, who expect it to gain strength in the coming days as it approaches the Caribbean and the American continent. As the first cyclone of the season approaches, experts fear the effects of the reassignment of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) officials to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The immigration crackdown is at the top of President Donald Trump’s agenda, and during this term he has prioritized the needs of ICE over other agencies. One of those affected is FEMA, which is responsible for organizing responses to natural disasters such as hurricanes and, like ICE, operates under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Dozens of its employees have received notices urging them to leave their positions and join the agency in charge of immigration detention and deportation.

“The Trump administration’s decision to transfer FEMA personnel to ICE as we enter peak hurricane season is a reckless move that puts lives at risk, especially in Latino communities that are disproportionately vulnerable to hurricanes and flooding,” said Elice Rojas-Cruz, managing director of Climate Power En Acción.

The affected officials are part of FEMA’s human resources and security teams, and DHS has ordered them to accept their new positions or face dismissal. Reassigning FEMA officials to other agencies, including ICE, is not new, but it has always been a voluntary option, not mandatory, as is the case now.

A former FEMA administrator under the Joe Biden administration explained in an interview with ABC that the standard practice was to seek authorization from a superior to ensure that operations wouldn’t be negatively impacted during a hurricane season. “My concern is does FEMA have the ability to bring those people back in case you have a major storm that impacts the United States,” Deanne Criswell said.

In response to this newspaper’s request for comment on the measure, DHS sent the official response, attributed to a department spokesperson. “DHS is adopting a comprehensive collaborative strategy to recruit 10,000 new ICE agents. To support this initiative, some FEMA employees will be temporarily assigned to ICE for 90 days to assist with hiring and background checks. Their deployment will NOT disrupt critical FEMA operations.”

However, the agency is already juggling the needs of current disasters, such as last month’s Texas floods, which left 135 people dead.

FEMA had already lost about 2,000 people in recent months, since the administration announced its intention to reduce the agency’s role in disaster response and transfer authority to the states.

“FEMA has already lost thousands of employees. The personnel who will be assigned to ICE play a vital role in rapidly mobilizing local disaster response, and withdrawing them delays crucial support when every second counts. This is not just poor planning, but a political maneuver with real and dangerous consequences for millions of Americans,” said Rojas Cruz of Climate Power En Acción.

The threats of climate change

Climate change is raising sea surface temperatures and increasing the intensity of hurricanes, leading to more severe flooding, stronger winds, and heavier rains. FEMA is responsible for organizing local resources where disasters occur, facilitating contracts, assigning tasks, and more. The human resources workers who will be transferred to ICE are essential for mobilizing the community at the scene of the disaster.

Emergency management will also be affected by the relocation of security personnel, who oversee the facilities’ safety and are able to shelter people if necessary, working in cooperation with local police.

But ICE’s needs are also urgent if it is to meet the administration’s goal of expelling one million migrants in the first year of Trump’s second term. Federal agents are overwhelmed and unable to meet the quota of 3,000 arrests per day, so DHS has launched a recruitment campaign with bonuses of up to $50,000 over three years, $60,000 in student loans, and retirement benefits. It has also eliminated minimum age restrictions for working at the agency.

According to The Washington Post, DHS has transferred more than 100 people to ICE: half of FEMA’s human resources department and about 50 people from its security team. Instead of helping the public in emergency situations, they will be assigned to assist in the detention and deportation of migrants, a very different mission from what they were hired to do.

Since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, job cuts and resignations at FEMA have reduced the number of employees with vital disaster training and experience. Political appointees to senior positions at the agency and the DHS lacked emergency management training and experience, according to experts, who also point to excessive bureaucracy as an added obstacle.

“A new policy that all purchases over $100,000 be personally approved by Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem led to more resignations. For disaster response, a delay in waiting for a signature to work its way up the chain can cost lives,” explains Susan L. Cutter, director of the Hazards Vulnerability and Resilience Institute at the University of South Carolina, in an article.

As the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina — which killed more than 1,000 people in the southern United States — marks its devastating impact, experts fear that the progress made in disaster response over the past two decades will be undone by the policy of transferring emergency management to the states. “The response piece of what FEMA does is not broken, and if we try to fix something that’s not broken, we’re just going to go back to pre-Hurricane Katrina days, and we saw how that turned out,” Criswell said.

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