A brand new $608 million grant program from the Federal Emergency Administration Company (FEMA) will give states cash to construct detention facilities for individuals suspected of being in the USA unlawfully.
FEMA was already slated to cowl a few of the prices for Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz” utilizing a Biden-era program meant for serving to asylum seekers. The brand new facility, rapidly constructed in a distant a part of the Florida Everglades, is anticipated to run a tab of about $450 million a 12 months.
The brand new FEMA grant program comes because the Trump administration has more and more slashed FEMA’s skill to help catastrophe response, and because the president has mulled closing the company altogether. CNN reported Friday that FEMA has proposed reducing almost $1 billion in grant funding to assist native first responders higher put together for disasters and to assist bolster cybersecurity.
A webpage for this system additionally mentioned it could assist cut back “overcrowding” in services maintained by Customs and Border Patrol.
A Human Rights Watch report launched this week charged that three services run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Florida confronted “excessive overcrowding,” and that many detainees had been denied entry to medical care.
FEMA has come underneath scrutiny within the wake of lethal flash floods in Texas, together with stories that the federal response was hamstrung by funds cuts or controls designed to restrict giant expenditures.
Purposes for this system are open by August 8. It’s not clear if states past Florida are but planning make pushes to construct their very own detention facilities.