DHS moves to bar aid groups from serving undocumented immigrants [View all]
Source: msn/Washington Post
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The Department of Homeland Security is now barring states and volunteer groups that receive government funds from helping undocumented immigrants, according to a Washington Post analysis of updated guidelines and interviews with Federal Emergency Management Agency employees. The new rules also require groups to cooperate with immigration officials and enforcement operations. Several disaster-assistance groups, FEMA employees and emergency management experts said the new requirements in the department’s fiscal 2025 aid contracts would make it harder for nonprofits to help the most vulnerable Americans in the aftermath of a disaster.
Some members of the national volunteer disaster group network also questioned whether the new requirements are constitutional and point out that they seem to violate some local and state laws that prevent asking about a person’s immigration status. By accepting the federal grants and awards, the new documents state, volunteer organizations that help after disasters must agree to not “operate any program that benefits illegal immigrants or incentivizes illegal immigration.”
That could put groups that provide food, housing, mental health support and other assistance in disaster-stricken states in the position of having to verify aid recipients legal status before providing assistance, experts said. “There is no historical context for this,” said Scott Robinson, an emergency management expert and FEMA historian who teaches at Arizona State University. “The notion that the federal government would use these operations for surveillance is entirely new territory.”
The affected contractors include faith-based groups and nonprofits such as the Salvation Army and Red Cross, which states usually rely on to set up shelters and deliver basic assistance. They often serve communities with large Latino populations, where people often have trouble getting federal aid because they are uninsured or live in multigenerational households so they can’t all apply to FEMA.
Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/dhs-moves-to-bar-aid-groups-from-serving-undocumented-immigrants/ar-AA1Ll1Yi
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