As hurricane season gets underway across the United States, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is under fire for moving Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) personnel to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The decision, made during peak disaster preparedness months, shows the administration’s growing focus on immigration enforcement, ven as extreme weather continues to hit vulnerable communities.
A Strategic Realignment: From Disaster Relief to Deportation
In early August, DHS sent over 100 FEMA employees on a 90 day detail to ICE. These personnel, mostly from FEMA’s Human Capital Division, will support ICE’s hiring and vetting efforts to bring on thousands of new immigration enforcement agents.
FEMA’s Human Capital staff are critical to hiring temporary field responders, approving contracts and managing security during major emergencies. Removing these key personnel during hurricane season, especially when disaster declarations are active, is a real threat to public safety.
An Agency Already Under Stress
FEMA is entering the 2025 hurricane season with unprecedented internal turmoil. Nearly 2,000 full-time FEMA employees have left the agency since 2021 layoffs, attrition and administrative conflicts. That’s almost one-third of the workforce. At least 16 senior executives resigned within days of the hurricane season starting. New FEMA Administrator David Richardson is part of the problem. Since he took over, he’s scrapped the agency’s strategic plan, centralized everything and eliminated key training programs. Field offices are reporting low morale, delayed deployments and confusion about operational guidance.
Richardson has questioned FEMA’s mission, saying he’s going to “run right over” anyone who resists change.
Legal and Operational Concerns
Many of the transferred FEMA staff are paid from the Disaster Relief Fund, which restricts their roles to emergency-related tasks or limited training activities. Helping ICE hire does not fall under those guidelines.
The reassignments also jeopardize FEMA’s ability to hire and deploy local staff for emergency response. During a declared disaster, FEMA activates hundreds of local staff to support logistics, shelter management and resource distribution.
Moreover, contract approvals for emergency housing, debris removal and food services will also be significantly delayed. These logistical contracts rely on timely vetting and coordination by FEMA’s support divisions divisions now thinned out by the ICE transfer.
Former FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said the move could “leave communities exposed” and described the reassignment as “reckless and politically motivated”. Lawmakers from both parties have echoed those concerns, some calling for immediate congressional hearings.
ICE Hiring Push: The Bigger Agenda
The transfer of FEMA staff to ICE is not an isolated action it’s part of a larger push by the Trump administration to dramatically increase immigration enforcement across the US. In early 2025, Congress approved a $10 billion supplemental budget to hire 10,000 new ICE officers over 5 years. The reallocation of FEMA staff helps accelerate the vetting and onboarding of those agents.
DHS officials say the current immigration crisis requires an “all hands on deck” approach. They claim FEMA staff have administrative expertise that aligns with ICE’s hiring surge.
Analysts see this as part of the administration’s broader goal to reorient DHS priorities. Trump and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem have long advocated for a limited federal role in disaster response, preferring state-led solutions. In March, an executive order transferred key disaster preparedness duties to state and local governments, shrinking FEMA’s authority in the process.
Public Outrage and Civil Liberties Concerns
Advocacy groups say DHS is using staffing policy to advance immigration enforcement at the expense of the public. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released a statement calling the reassignment “a betrayal of FEMA’s mission and a threat to human life.”
Social media campaigns are demanding accountability from DHS and FEMA leadership. Hashtags #ProtectFEMA and #DisasterNotDeportation are trending nationally since the announcement.
Legal challenges may be on the way. Some attorneys representing reassigned employees are arguing that forcing FEMA workers to join ICE operations without consent violates federal employment law. If those cases move forward, they could delay or disrupt the 90-day ICE assignment window.
Conclusion
As the 2025 hurricane season heats up, DHS’s decision to pull FEMA staff to ICE is a moment of truth in disaster policy. Critics say it’s a trade-off of preparedness for politics and puts millions in disaster zones at risk.
The administration says it’s for national security, but the timing and target have been widely panned. FEMA is already weak, with leadership instability and dwindling staff, and a major emergency could be disastrous.
Unless this is reversed or limited, this could be the future where emergency response is no longer a top national priority. The question now is: will we protect communities from disaster or redirect those resources to border walls and detention centers?
