The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) fired four employees for making “egregious payments” for New York City hotels used for migrants, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said Tuesday.

Newsweek reached out to FEMA via email for comment.

Why It Matters

President Donald Trump’s successful 2024 campaign heavily focused on illegal immigration and the promise of deporting upward of 11 million people without legal status in the United States. The policy was shown to be popular among both Democrats and Republicans before and after the election.

A New York Times/Ipsos survey (January 2-10) found that 55 percent of voters back Trump’s mass deportation plan, while 88 percent support deporting undocumented immigrants with criminal records. While most Democrats and Republicans agree that the immigration system is broken, some disagree about how policies such as deportations should be carried out.

Meanwhile, Trump has proposed getting rid of FEMA altogether, preferring that “the states take care of their own problems,” as he put it during an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity last month. Trump has been critical of FEMA’s response to Hurricane Helene, which devastated western North Carolina and Florida’s Big Bend region, and the wildfires in Los Angeles, including suggesting that the agency was biased against people in Republican-led areas.

FEMA and other officials denied Trump’s claims and provided evidence to the contrary.

What To Know

The DHS announced on Tuesday that four FEMA employees, including Chief Financial Officer Mary Comans, were terminated for payments to reimburse New York City for hotel costs for migrants, but did not give details on how the four had violated any policies.

“Effective immediately, FEMA is terminating the employment of four individuals for circumventing leadership to unilaterally make egregious payments for luxury NYC hotels for migrants. Firings include FEMA’s Chief Financial Officer, two program analysts and a grant specialist,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement to Newsweek.

“Under President Trump and Secretary [Kristi] Noem’s leadership, DHS will not sit idly and allow deep state activists to undermine the will and safety of the American people,” the statement said.

An Ecuadorean migrant (C) checks his phone during dinner time at the migrant shelter on New York’s Randall’s Island on April 9, 2024. An Ecuadorean migrant (C) checks his phone during dinner time at the migrant shelter on New York’s Randall’s Island on April 9, 2024. Andres Kudacki/AP

The firings come after Elon Musk, who leads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), claimed on X, formerly Twitter that FEMA sent “$59M LAST WEEK to luxury hotels in New York City to house illegal migrants.”

Musk did not provide evidence for his claim. City officials countered that the funds in question were legally allocated by Congress last year.

A New York City Hall spokesperson told Newsweek that the city only continued to receive previously allocated reimbursements by the Biden administration through the past week, stating that the previous administration had committed $237 million in funding to help house the migrants.

Of the $59.3 million in question, $19 million was for direct hotel costs, while the balance funded other services such as food and security. The funds were not part of a disaster relief grant.

While Musk did not detail what the payments were from, it is seemingly in reference to the Shelter and Services Program, which reimburses local governments and organizations for immigration-related expenses. This program, separate from FEMA’s disaster relief fund, was first authorized by Congress in 2019 as migrant arrivals at the U.S. southern border surged.

While FEMA administers the payments for this program, the money from the program comes directly from Congress.

New York City has sheltered an estimated 46,000 migrants amid a broader influx of roughly 230,000 newcomers since 2022, stretching local resources, according to the Associated Press. The city has used a mix of hotels and tent shelters to meet its legal obligations under right-to-shelter laws.

The acting head of FEMA announced Monday that payments to New York City for migrant housing have been suspended and that staff who made them will be held accountable.

Cameron Hamilton, acting administrator of FEMA, had reposted Musk’s comments and said the payments were suspended as of Sunday.

What People Are Saying

New York City Hall, in a statement to Newsweek: “The previous administration left New York City largely on its own to manage an international humanitarian crisis. At its height, we took swift emergency action to house thousands of migrants arriving in our city every week — including in completely vacant hotels — ensuring that no family slept on our streets and that the public safety of longtime New Yorkers was not compromised.

“Thanks to our smart management of the crisis, we have helped over 184,000 migrants leave the city’s shelter system since the spring of 2022. But, we are not out of the woods yet. We continue to see hundreds of migrants entering the city’s care every week, with over 46,000 still in our shelter system and emergency-contracted hotels.”

The statement continued: “In all instances, we have worked to minimize the costs of this crisis and have negotiated service costs to ensure that we are not wasting tax payer dollars. We have already spent over $7 billion on this crisis alone, and the previous administration committed only $237 million in funding to help house the migrants in our care and for future services. We have continued to receive previously allocated reimbursements through the past week. We will discuss this matter directly with federal officials.”

Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Trisha McLaughlin told the Associated Press: “As Secretary Noem said yesterday, we must get rid of FEMA the way it exists today. This is yet another egregious example. Individuals who circumvented leadership and unilaterally made this payment will be fired and held accountable.”

What Happens Next

It remains unclear whether other FEMA employees will face termination and if other jurisdictions receiving Shelter and Services Program funds will also face funding suspensions.

As tensions escalate between the federal government and local jurisdictions over immigration policy, the dispute over FEMA’s payments shows a growing battle over how—and where—migrant support funds should be allocated.

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