Trump administration ready to claw back another $106 million in FEMA migrant funds from NYC
The Trump administration warned Big Apple officials this month it was ready to grab back another $106 million in federal funds tied to migrant costs – but Mayor Eric Adams vowed Tuesday to fight the feds to keep the dough.A top FEMA official told the city in an April 1 letter that the US government was axing a trio of already-awarded grants totaling $188 million, including the roughly $80 million in migrant funding secretly taken back by the White House in February.Cameron Hamilton, senior official performing the duties of the administrator, wrote that retaking the massive haul is in line with the Department of Homeland Security’s crackdown on illegal immigration under President Trump. “The Department, consistent with President Trump’s direction, is focused on advancing the essential mission of enforcing immigration laws and securing the border,” Hamilton wrote in the letter obtained by The Post Tuesday.
“Consequently, grant programs that support, or have the potential to support, illegal immigration through funding illegal activities or support illegal aliens that is not consistent with DHS’s enforcement focus do not effectuate the agency’s current practices.”The federal funding was first congressionally appropriated during the Biden presidency in response to New York’s migrant crisis, in which more than 230,000 asylum seekers had descended on Gotham. Adams called the federal plan “unlawful” and said the city’s law department is “currently determining the best legal recourse to take to ensure that this money remains in New York City, where it was allocated and belongs.”He added the grants from the feds are the “bare minimum New York taxpayers deserve,” and the federal dollars are to reimburse the city for money already spent on migrants.“As I have repeatedly said, New York City did not create this crisis — it was caused by decades of federal inaction and failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform.
Yet, New Yorkers —...