Trump’s administration quickly corrected on his promise to get back Federal financing was supposed to cover some of the housing migrants carried by the New York City, and unilaterally reverse the transfer of $ 80 million that the Federal Emergency Management Agency carried out to the city last week.
The city manager said on Wednesday that they noticed that City Bank accounts suddenly disappeared $ 80 million. Shortly thereafter, the Ministry of Internal Security, in which FEMA is located, confirmed that the money was back on Tuesday, which is a significant escalation of President Trump attempts to freeze or reverse the financing This was previously appropriated by Congress.
KlawBack occurred one day after Elon Musk aimed at Funds of Fema in the X post, stimulating the Republican stir over the use of federal dollars to have a migrants, and called on Trump’s administration Burn four femax officials involved in the transfer.
The city officials questioned the legality of the move, which seemed to be among the first known cases of Trump’s administration, which captured the congress -appropriated funds from the locality.
Liz Garcia, Mayor’s spokesman Eric Adams, said the town hall was communicating with the White House and asked for an emergency meeting with Fema to “try to solve the matter as quickly as possible”.
She added that the Town Hall carried out “internal investigations of how this happened” and that the municipal legal department “has already examined various possibilities of court proceedings”.
The Federal Government is usually permitted to recruit funds already scattered through grants if payments are considered inappropriate or contrary to the agreement According to the Congress Research Service.
“I returned the complete payment that Fema Deep State activists unilaterally gave the migrant NYC hotels,” said Kristi Noem, Minister of Inner Security, on X. “Mark my words: The only penny will not be spent that goes against the interest and security of the US people. ”
Mrs Noah seemed to justify Clawback by saying that the city used FEMA funding to finance the use of the Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown Manhattan as a hiding of migrants and claimed that the hotel served as the “base of operations” for Tren de Aragua, Venezuelan gang that Mr. Trump Recently moved to indicate Foreign terrorist organization. (Police officials said the gang hired members of internal migrants inner shelters and that Roosevelt, in which hundreds of migrating families are located Gang’s offshoots.)
It seemed that Mr. Trump referred to the Roosevelt Hotel during a press conference on Wednesday, referring to “a hotel that was not a luxury that gains luxury rates for migrants where they make assets”. (City officials said they would not pay luxury rates to hotels that they had concluded with contractual migrants; the city in 2024 paid an average night rate of about $ 156 per room, in 2024, According to the city controller.)
Some legal experts said that the federal government was obliged to honor binding contracts, and proposed that a reclamation of $ 80 million could be illegal if the City with Fema agreement did not allow the claw.
“In addition, it seems that it is an attempt to seize appropriated funds without complying with the procedures stipulated in the Security Control Act,” said David A. Super, professor of administrative law at Georgetown University. “That would be illegal.”
Last year, the funds concerned were proportionate to Congress under former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. The program of shelter and servicesHe managed Fema and launched Congress in 2023 to issue grants to cities and organizations providing services to migrants who were released from federal custody after crossing the border.
The program, created in the middle of the record high border crossings that amazed cities across the country, became a frequent goal of Mr. Trump and his Republican allies who expressed outrage over the use of dollars of taxpayers to place migrants in hotels and other steels. Mr. Trump falsely required last year The fact that Fema has exhausted its budget and diverted the means to help disasters to pay for migrants’ housing, although the shelter program was a fraction of the total budget of the Federal agency and was part of a separate stream of financing.
A similar misleading criticism of the program appeared on Monday, when Musk said in the X contribution that his government’s costing team identified a $ 59 million payment that Fema made in New York to support housing migrants in hotels. Mr. Musk said without processing that the payment violated the law and the executive order of Trump.
City officials $ 59 million, they said, part of the $ 80 million payment, which Fema had previously assigned to the city and paid in full last week. This money is part of a roofing of $ 237 million that Biden’s administration committed to the city for migrants.
The fall from Mr. Musk’s post was fast. It led fire On Tuesday, Four FEMA employees, including its CFO who was charged with undermining the management of the agency – even if the funds earned Congress before.
And he led the reigning director Fem, Cameron Hamilton to announce that the payment would be suspended, although most of the money has already been paid to the city.
On Wednesday, Brad Lander, New York City Comproller, Clawback described as illegal, and called on the mayor of Adams to conduct legal steps to get “tens of millions of dollars stolen Trump and Doga”, as a team of Musk, who reduces the cost team is known.
Mr. Lander, who in this year’s democratic primary primary primary primary primary basis challenges the mayor, said that employees in their office watching the city accounting systems on Wednesday morning.
They were confused, Mr. Lander said, because the money was supposed to pay the city for the costs that had already arisen and invoiced the federal government. Although he could not tell for sure whether he had previously happened to a similar Clawback, Mr. Lander described it as a “robbery on the highway”.
“I consider it terrifying that the federal government had the ability to entertain money from us in a way that we did not know,” he said during a press conference on Wednesday. “I asked,” Did it ever happen? “No one is aware that this is happening.”
Clawback comes only a day after the Ministry of Justice moved to cancel fees for federal corruption against Mr. Adams, Democrat. This step has triggered intensive will from his critics, who are afraid that the mayor will now be personally considered to be Mr. Trump at the expense of the best interests of the city.
Asked by reporters about Clawback on Wednesday, Mr. Adams did not mention Mr. Trump. Instead, he rediscovered his past complaints with Biden administration, which he repeatedly said that since 2022 there were few to support the city’s efforts by $ 7 billion to place more than 230,000 migrants.
“We will do everything we can to get every dime to New York,” the mayor said as he arrived at the City Hall in Queens. “It is unfair that the previous administration has left us a huge price sign and we want to sit down and explain how we believe that the cost of a national problem should not be on the back of cities.”
The spokesman of Letitia James, a general prosecutor who normally questioned Mr. Trump in court, said that her office was reviewing Clawback funds.
The report contributed Benjamin Oresheses, Matathias Schwartz, Jeffery C. Mays and Chelsia Rose Marcius.
