Nevada Taxpayers Foot $100 Million Bill for Illegal Immigrant College Students

One out of every 32 students enrolled in a public university in Nevada is an illegal alien. They have no legal basis for being in this country, but these unlawful students are enjoying their university’s classes, recreational facilities, parties, and sporting events—all of which are subsidized by hardworking Nevada taxpayers.

The Nevada System of Higher Education is quite proud of having so many students who have no legal basis for being in the country. It issued a statement that “reaffirms our strong commitment in support of undocumented and DACAmented students” and declared “we are committed to efforts that support the success and well-being of all our students, regardless of their immigration status.”

(The DACA in “DACAmented” stands for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that the Obama administration created to prevent the government from deporting illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children. DACA has been ruled illegal by some courts and is still being contested in others.)

That’s very bold of Nevada’s public universities to be indifferent to enforcement of immigration laws, especially when that indifference serves their interests by adding about 3,243 students to their total enrollment of about 105,000. But it is Nevada’s taxpayers who have to foot the bill.

Nevada public universities offer illegal immigrant students in-state tuition and provide them financial aid on the same basis as students who are citizens. For example, the University of Nevada at Las Vegas charges students from out of state $28,046, much more than the $9,904 it charges in-state students and illegal immigrants.

The $18,142 discount for in-state students largely comes from taxpayers. The extra charge for out-of-state students recognizes that people from out of state have not paid as much in taxes to Nevada. Of course, the same is true of illegal immigrants, especially if they are paid in cash to evade immigration laws and end up not paying state income taxes.

So, Nevada public universities offer illegal immigrants a financial break that U.S. citizens from other states do not receive. That benefit extended to illegal aliens ends up costing Nevada taxpayers about $59 million per year. Offering in-state tuition to illegal aliens but not to U.S. citizens from other states also violates the 1996 immigration law, but the Biden-Harris administration has refused to enforce this provision, permitting states like Nevada to flaunt the law.

In addition to the taxpayer-funded in-state tuition subsidy, Nevada public universities provided $683.2 million in financial aid in 2022-23. If that aid were distributed in proportion to the percentage of illegal immigrant students attending the schools, that would amount to another $21 million for them. But given that illegal immigrant students are significantly more likely to report fewer assets and lower incomes than other students, they will likely qualify for more aid. Therefore, it is reasonable to estimate that they receive not $21 million, but over $30 million per year in direct financial assistance to attend college, in addition to the $59 million in tuition subsidies.

Between the in-state tuition and full access to financial aid offered to illegal immigrant students, Nevada taxpayers are spending about $100 million per year for these students. In doing so, they are often paying for illegal immigrant students to enjoy a much higher standard of living than the average taxpayer funding their college experiences.

At UNLV, illegal immigrant students can swim at a natatorium with a “shallow water leisure pool with vortex,” a “13-person spa,” and a “gender-inclusive locker room.” The UNLV Student Recreation and Wellness Center also offers “outdoor adventures trips and equipment rentals,” “climbing elements,” “massage chairs,” and “a team of clinicians … who promote physical, emotional, spiritual, social, occupational, environmental, and intellectual well-being.”

In addition to these taxpayer-subsidized luxuries, UNLV offers 576 student organizations. Illegal alien students can become active in the #BlackLivesMatter club to “get involved with their efforts for social justice,” the If/When/How–Lawyering for Reproductive Justice club to help people “actualize sexual and reproductive well-being on their own terms,” or the Students for Justice in Palestine club that’s “dedicated to advancing the cause for Palestinian justice and liberation.”

According to the Nevada System of Higher Education, it is worth having taxpayers fork over almost $100 million each year so that illegal alien students can enjoy all of these wonders of higher education because, as they put it, “undocumented students are making positive economic, cultural, and scholarly impacts on our communities.”

Even if illegal alien students do go on to make positive contributions, that does not consider what taxpayers might have been able to accomplish for themselves and their communities if they had been able to keep that $100 million. They could have started new businesses, hired more employees, paid for a better education for their own children, or donated to their local church.

The injustice of having 1 out of every 32 students in Nevada public universities be an illegal alien and having their educational costs subsidized by taxpayers is that it treats the ambitions of those who have no legal reason to be in the country as more worthy than the hopes and dreams of Nevada citizens who have to pay for it.

Nevada, like the rest of the U.S., should be a welcoming place to those who legally enter the country, but it should not subordinate the interests and needs of its own citizens for those who break the law to come here.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/10/25/nevada-taxpayers-foot-100-million-bill-illegal-immigrant-college-students/

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Canada slams the brakes on immigration levels

Canada is to sharply slow the number of immigrants the country will allow to arrive, leading to a decline in the population for 2025 and 2026.

The aggressive intake of immigrants positioned Canada as having the fastest population growth among Group of Seven countries by a significant margin, and officials acknowledge newcomers helped fuel a strong economic ­recovery following the Covid-19 pandemic.

The influx of newcomers, though, placed considerable strain on housing affordability, infrastructure and social services, and officials say it’s time to slow down.

“We didn’t get the balance quite right,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who’s struggling in the polls and faces re-election in a year, or maybe sooner.

Two polls released last week indicated that a majority of ­Canadians believed the country was admitting too many newcomers.

Officials said with its new plan, they expect the population to decline marginally, by 0.2 per cent in both 2025 and 2026, a dramatic slowdown from the current 3 per cent-plus year-on-year pace.

Mr Trudeau and Immigration Minister Marc Miller said the number of permanent residents, or immigrants legally allowed to work and live in the country without a visa, would be reduced by about 20 per cent in 2025 from previously planned levels, to 395,000, and dwindle further to 365,000 starting in 2027.

Furthermore, Canadian officials will work to reduce the number of temporary immigrants in the country, either on work or student visas, by about 500,000 next year and 2026.

Mr Miller previously said the government would reduce the share of temporary-visa holders to a 5 per cent share of the population over a multi-year period. Current data indicates temporary-visa holders make up over 7 per cent of the Canadian ­population, which is now above 41 million.

“It is a responsible plan to grow immigration, while the net effect is a pause on the population growth,” Mr Miller said.

Curtailing the intake of immigrants marks one of the biggest policy sea-changes from the Liberal governments. Since coming to power in 2015, Liberal administration officials have advocated for an aggressive immigration policy, and lauded how the ­country is better than its developed-world peers in welcoming newcomers and incorporating them into the economy.

Economists and policy analysts argue Canada would find ­itself in a recession were it not for population growth.

The new immigration plan will have immediate ramifications on the economy, analysts say. The Bank of Canada’s latest economic forecast, released this week, anticipates growth of 2.1 per cent next year on the assumption population growth would slow in 2025 to 1.5 per cent. Canadian ­officials now say the population will shrink. The Bank of Canada cut its policy rate by a half-point on Wednesday, to 3.75 per cent, citing slowing inflation and soft economic conditions.

Economist Derek Holt of Bank of Nova Scotia said the government’s new immigration plan should lead to a drop in the unemployment rate and Canada’s ­potential output. As a result, the amount of excess supply, or spare capacity, in the economy could disappear faster than the Bank of Canada projects.

“The Bank of Canada will wish to tread carefully,” Mr Holt said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/canada-slams-the-brakes-on-immigration-levels/news-story/b0cbd6fbe66968a770adf897954be46f

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DOJ Wrong: Federal Law Doesn’t Prevent States From Removing Aliens From Voter Rolls

The Biden-Harris Justice Department is wrong in claiming that federal law bars Virginia and other states from removing aliens from their voter rolls. And if the law DOJ cites is misinterpreted by a court to agree with the agency’s erroneous claim, then the law likely would be unconstitutional.

The Justice Department sued Virginia after it removed the names of 6,303 aliens and Alabama after it moved 3,251 aliens to an “inactive” list.

Keep in mind that it’s a felony under several federal statutes for an alien to claim fraudulently to be a citizen so he or she may register to vote or vote in U.S. elections, including 18 U.S.C. §§ 611, 911, and 1015(f). The Justice Department has a duty to enforce these statutes, something the agency apparently has no interest in doing under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

The federal voter registration form established by the National Voter Registration Act, or NVRA, not only asks applicants whether they are U.S. citizens, it requires them to attest under penalty of perjury that they are citizens.

The form has a strict warning that if the would-be voter provides false information, he or she may “be fined, imprisoned, or(if not a U.S. citizen) deported from or refused entry to the United States.”

However, the Justice Department claims that Virginia and Alabama violated the law’s 90-day preelection deadline for “systematic” list maintenance programs. This, according to the DOJ led by Attorney General Merrick Garland, prevents all “systematic” removals from a voter registration list within 90 days of an election.

What the Justice Department fails to point out is that the 90-day deadline is in the second part of a section of the National Voter Registration Act that deals only with the removal of the names of registered voters who have moved.

The first part outlines the rule for removing the names of individuals who have moved to a different residence either within the state or another state. The second part then applies the 90-day deadline for such removals.

That section of the law also says that the deadline doesn’t apply to “correction of registration records” or to removal of names of voters who have requested it or who have died or become ineligible due to a criminal conviction or mental incapacity.

The common factor in all of those exceptions is that each deals with individuals who were eligible to vote when they registered but subsequently became ineligible.

The 90-day deadline obviously doesn’t apply to an alien who wasn’t eligible to register to vote in the first place and, in fact, was committing a felony violation of federal criminal law by registering.

Critics, including the Justice Department, have claimed that those exceptions are the “exclusive” reasons that a state may remove the names of registered individuals from the voter rolls.

In 2012, in Arcia v. Detzner, a federal case out of the Southern District of Florida, Judge William Zloch said that claim would “produce an absurd result.”

Zloch ruled that would mean a state couldn’t “remove from its voting rolls minors, fictitious individuals, individuals who misrepresent their residence in the state, and non-citizens.”

The 90-day deadline, the judge decided, “simply does not apply to an improperly registered noncitizen.”

In another 2012 federal case, U.S. v. Florida, Judge Robert Hinkle of the Northern District of Florida concluded that Congress drafted these provisions of the law to deal with the removal of names of registered voters “on grounds that typically arise after an initial proper registration.”  The provisions don’t apply to “revocation of an improperly granted registration of a noncitizen,”  Hinkle ruled.

In fact, the judge wrote, “the NVRA does not require a state to allow a noncitizen to vote just because the state did not catch the error more than 90 days in advance.”

Moreover, the Justice Department is also wrong in claiming that the law bars all “systematic” removals of voters’ names.

As Hinkle ruled, during the 90-day period “a state may pursue a program to systematically remove registrants on request or based on a criminal conviction, mental incapacity, or death but not based on a change of residence.”

What “matters here,” the federal judge added, “is this: none of this applies to removing noncitizens who were never properly registered in the first place.”

It is true that in a deeply flawed, cursory analysis, a divided panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the Southern District of Florida decision and held that the 90-day deadline did apply to the removal of aliens’ names from voter rolls.

But Florida didn’t appeal this obviously wrong decision by two appeals court judges to the entire 11th Circuit or to the Supreme Court. The 11th Circuit panel’s decision not only is wrong based on the text of the statute, but any interpretation of the National Voter Registration Act that would force a state to allow an ineligible alien who violated criminal law by registering to remain registered so he may cast a ballot in an upcoming election likely would render the law unconstitutional.

In 2019, in Bellito v. Snipes, another case arising out of Florida, a different 11th Circuit panel held that in applying the NVRA, “Congress would not have mandated that the state register” an individual who “is not eligible to vote.”

If the NVRA does not require a state to register an ineligible alien to vote, it cannot be construed to require a state to maintain and continue the registration of an ineligible alien.

Alabama and Virginia should fight the Justice Department and be willing to take these cases all the way to the  Supreme Court.  Maintaining the security and integrity of the American election process and protecting voters against foreign interference that voids their votes requires no less.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/10/23/doj-wrong-federal-law-doesnt-prevent-states-from-removing-illegal-aliens-from-voter-rolls/

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Behind the Scenes of US-Mexico Border Crisis

EL PASO, Texas—On the outskirts of this west Texas desert town, the “no go zone” of the U.S. border with Mexico is pitch black and tense at 10 p.m. Darkness suits everyone’s interests here; it appears neither border crossers nor U.S. Border Patrol agents want to be seen before they make their move.

Anapra Road and the connecting wall route are where illegal immigrants and their cartel handlers now choose to cross in this region—and they will use force if they feel it necessary. Nearly a dozen Border Patrol vehicles and at least as many agents sit, with their lights off, behind a partition of scrub brush. When cars pass by, their heads snap upward and in tandem, they all turn to watch. Their large presence indicates anticipation of something.

Down the road, there’s a rectangular cutout in the wall. This portal from the world to the United States is large enough for about one man to get through at a time. Watching over the hole, a Border Patrol agent sits in a nearby vehicle. And he waits. He knows migrants are coming.

In September, Border Patrol agents reported nearly 54,000 apprehensions of illegal immigrants along the U.S. border with Mexico, between ports of entry. That doesn’t include the thousands of “gotaways”—the ones who were observed but not caught, and the ones who were never seen.

At the ports of entry, Customs and Border Protection recorded 48,000 migrants.

That number is actually down from last spring—though, of course, the numbers don’t tell the whole story.

The Biden administration credits the decrease to its summer crackdown on crossings and its smartphone app, CBP One. The app is intended to encourage migrants to follow the protocol rather than cross the border surreptitiously.

“Use of the CBP One app to schedule appointments at ports of entry has increased CBP’s capacity to process migrants in a more efficient and orderly manner while cutting out unscrupulous smugglers who endanger and profit from vulnerable migrants,” the administration claims.

Farmers Kevin and Jennifer Ivey have spent their lives growing and harvesting cotton and pecans on their ranch in El Paso County, along Mexico’s border. Over the years, Kevin Ivey estimates his family has lost about $100,000 in stolen property and damaged equipment at the hands of migrants traveling through their property after crossing the border illegally.

Ivey said he noticed a “huge difference” in the number of migrants crossing through his property after President Joe Biden entered the Oval Office. Multiple trucks have been stolen off the Iveys’ farm, a large duffle bag of drugs was found on their property, and it is not uncommon for helicopters to fly overhead in pursuit of migrants seeking to evade Border Patrol agents.

With the U.S. presidential election quickly approaching, immigration is at the top of voters’ minds, according to Pew Research Center, second only to the economy.

“About six-in-ten voters (61%) today say immigration is very important to their vote—a 9 percentage point increase from the 2020 presidential election and 13 points higher than during the 2022 congressional elections,” Pew reports. “Immigration is now a much more important issue for Republican voters in particular: 82% of Trump supporters say it is very important to their vote in the 2024 election, up 21 points from 2020.”

Those polling numbers could be behind Vice President Kamala Harris’ recent about-face on immigration. In September, Harris made her way to Arizona for a speech about the issue.

“To reduce illegal border crossings, I will take further action to keep the border closed between ports of entry,” Harris said in the scrublands of Douglas, Arizona. Those measures include barring people entering illegally from ever receiving asylum. “Our system must be orderly and secure, and that is my goal,” she said.

She also alleged that her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, tanked a bill to fix the border. She said she would sign similar legislation if it was brought before her.

Chuck DeVore, chief national initiatives officer for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, contends that Harris is watching the polls closely.

“Bad polling is the sole reason why Vice President Harris has changed her messaging on the border—the chaos on the border is a huge political problem for Harris’ campaign,” he said.

As for Harris’ proposed border policies, DeVore added, “There’s nothing keeping the Biden-Harris administration from enacting those policies right now—why wait for the election?”

https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/10/23/pull-back-curtain-on-the-border-crisis-today/

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Large Migrant Caravan Makes Its Way to the US

A migrant caravan is heading northward toward the United States a few weeks before Election Day, the results of which will almost undoubtedly spell changes for border enforcement policies, according to The Associated Press.

A roughly 2,000-person-strong migrant caravan left southern Mexico on Sunday in hopes of reaching the U.S. in the coming days, according to the AP. The latest caravan is so far the largest since newly-elected Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum entered office in October.

Among those in the caravan are individuals who expressed concern that a new administration in Washington, D.C., would lead to the end of a popular app that has allowed hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals to schedule appointments with Customs and Border Protection officials in hopes of entering the country.

“That is what makes us fearful,” Joel Zambrano, a Venezuelan national, said to The Associated Press. “They say this could change because they could both close the CBP One appointment and all the services that are helping migrants.”

The CBP One app was first created in October 2020, with the Biden-Harris administration dramatically expanding its use in January 2023. The popular app enables migrants to schedule appointments in order to obtain exemptions at ports of entry, and permits them to submit biometric data to federal immigration authorities in order to apply for travel authorization and obtain parole.

More than 800,000 noncitizens scheduled appointments through the CBP One app from January 2023 through the end of August 2024, according to CBP. The Biden-Harris administration has additionally flown in more than half a million foreign nationals into the country via an initiative known as CHNV—a program that grants two-year parole to Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan nationals.

Roughly 7.4 million migrants have illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border since the beginning of the Biden-Harris administration, according to the latest data from CBP.

While the CBP One app and an election-year crackdown on illegal immigration by the Mexican government have helped keep migrants in southern Mexico, many are reportedly leaving the region due to a delay in asylum appointments and a lack of job opportunities.

“The situation in my country is very bad, the president doesn’t do anything for us. We spent a week by the border, but getting documents takes time,” Honduran Roberto Domínguez said to The Associated Press. “The documents we get are only for us to be in Tapachula and we cannot leave the city.”

Despite an attempt to brand herself as more of a border hawk since launching her presidential campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris has consistently polled poorly with voters on border enforcement issues following her administration’s oversight of a historical border crisis. Former President Donald Trump, for his part, has pledged to hire 10,000 Border Patrol agents, give them a 10% pay bump, and wage a large-scale deportation effort.

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Harris can’t say how many illegal aliens her administration released or whether Biden was fit

Vice President Kamala Harris on Oct. 16 sat down with Fox News’ Brett Baier for a brief interview that posed many ultimately unanswered questions, including about the administration of President Joe Biden and Harris in allowing millions of illegal immigrants to remain in America, some of whom went on to commit heinous murders and rapes, and about Biden’s fitness to remain in office as he was being to deposed as the Democratic Party nominee to Harris’ benefit.

When asked by Baier “how many illegal immigrants would you estimate your Administration has released into the country over the last three and a half years?” Harris gave a standard “I'm glad you raised the issue” non-answer, proceeding instead to say she and Biden had offered legislation, which Baier noted would have granted citizenship to those who had been released into America.

The answer was of course since Feb. 2021, there have been 8.3 million encounters by the U.S. Border Patrol on the southwest border, the most in recorded U.S. history, of which, most were allowed to remain. For example, in Fiscal Year 2024, of the 2.75 million southwest border encounters, 1.4 million were Title 8 apprehensions, of which only about 309,000 were subjected to expedited removal, about 109,000 were detained pending proceedings and another 139,000 voluntarily returned, with almost all of the rest given a voluntary “notice to appear” for later immigration proceedings. The rest were just caught and released. In other words, about 2.2 million stayed.

But that wasn’t necessary. As Baier noted, Biden and Harris could have simply kept Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy in place (an executive agreement between the U.S. and Mexico), continued with the Title 42 removals (Biden ended those in May 2023) and to keep the national emergency Trump declared on the southern border in place. There were things under laws Congress already passed that Trump had done that could have been used to have stem the mass migration taking place, but instead were rescinded, allowing millions to continue crossing the border.

According to the latest data from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released on Sept. 25 via Congressional oversight by U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas), of those who were allowed to remain in the U.S., 13,376 were convicted murderers, 16,120 were convicted of sexual assault, 64,579 were convicted of assault, 43,546 were convicted of burglary, larceny or robbery, 13,876were  convicted of weapons offenses, 2,606 were convicted of kidnapping and 2,218 were convicted of commercialized sexual offenses — all before they ever came to America and were released into the country by the federal government.

According to the House Homeland Security Committee release on Sept. 27, “they had previously been encountered by CBP, turned over to ICE, had their criminal history documented, and then were released into the United States.” 151,851 out of 156,521, or 97 percent — were not currently detained by ICE, with only 4,670 are detention and subject to removal. Of the convicted murderers, the numbers are even worse: only 277 were in detention, or just 2.2 percent.

Responding to Harris’ statements that former President Donald Trump was “unstable,” Baier asked Harris, “you told many interviewers that Joe Biden was on his game that ran around circles on his staff. When did you first notice that President Biden's mental faculties appeared diminished?” which led to Biden being replaced, adding, “you met with him at least once a week for 3 and 1/2 years. You didn't have any concerns?”

Again, Harris couldn’t or wouldn’t answer that there was any trouble with Biden’s fitness to serve, first suggesting “Joe Biden I have watched in from the Oval Office to the situation room and he has the judgment and the experiment and experience to do exactly what he has… done in making very important decisions on behalf of the American people. And then when asked again if she had ever had any concerns, she dodged and instead pivoted to Trump, “I think the American people have a concern about Donald Trump…”

Which wasn’t the question. It was about the circumstances that catapulted Harris to be the beneficiary of Biden’s fall, and to ascertain if Harris had ever had any concern about Biden’s fitness to serve.

Similar questions about Trump’s own nomination could simply be answered by noting he had swept 49 out of 50 states against former South Carolina Republican Gov. Nikki Haley. That is, he earned it. Whereas Biden was removed from being the nominee precisely because he couldn’t tie two sentences together when confronted by Trump in the perilous June 27 debate — and Harris refuses to acknowledge the circumstances.

The interview comes as Trump has been surging in both national and battleground state polls, showing increasing strength as Nov. 5 rapidly approaches. It certainly explains Democrats and Harris’ decision to put Harris out there in combative interviews such as the Fox one to counter criticisms and to press for details about the policies she oversaw, including border security and immigration, and the reasons for her being the nominee.

That fact is, Harris is the incumbent, who wields the incumbency advantage but also bears the burdens of the incumbent when it comes to the present administration’s shortcomings, which Harris blames on Trump when Trump hasn’t been in power since Jan. 20, 2021.

At one point in the interview, Harris unironically remarked, “You are responsible for what happened in your Administration.” We know.

https://dailytorch.com/2024/10/as-trump-surges-democrats-panic-as-harris-cant-say-how-many-illegal-aliens-her-administration-released-or-whether-biden-was-fit/

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Hurricanes Lead to Surge in Voter Concern about Immigration

In my last post, I examined a recent Harvard-Harris poll and noted it revealed that immigration was the second-biggest issue behind inflation on voters’ minds headed into the election, ahead of abortion, healthcare, and jobs. There are two questions from that poll I did not discuss, but they likely show why immigration is such a hot topic now – all due to three disasters (Hurricanes Helene and Milton, and one at the border) and the federal government’s responses thereto. Let me explain.

Before I begin, though, here’s a brief recap: That Harvard-Harris poll of 3,145 registered voters was conducted between October 11 and 13, just about two weeks after Hurricane (and then Tropical Storm) Helene cut a swathe of destruction through Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, and eastern Tennessee. Rural sections of the Appalachians were particularly hard hit.

I’ll return to that destruction, but respondents in that poll were surveyed with the images of devastation still fresh in their minds.

It revealed that 14 percent of registered voters named “immigration” as the single issue that mattered to them personally, trailing only inflation (46 percent) and ahead of abortion (11 percent).

At roughly the same time that poll was being conducted, Fox News was surveying respondents for a poll of its own, which was released on October 16. That one surveyed 1,110 registered voters.

As with the Harvard-Harris poll, it showed that immigration was the second-most important issue for respondents in were deciding how to vote, trailing only the economy.

Some 39 percent of the likely – not just registered – voters polled by Fox News said the economy would be the most important on their minds at the ballot box, and 18 percent stated it was immigration.

Abortion was in third place among likely voters in that poll, at 14 percent, while healthcare took fourth, the most important electoral issue for 8 percent of respondents.

That represented a 1-point rise for immigration over similar Fox News polling conducted a month earlier, and a 2-point decline for abortion. The economy also saw a single point increase over that time.

One month before that, in August, “just” 14 percent of registered voters identified immigration as their single most important electoral issue, tied with abortion for second place.

There are two reasons why I am bringing this up. First, it shows that the Harvard-Harris poll wasn’t an outlier. Second, it indicates that immigration is gaining more traction as an issue with the election nearing.

The Destruction

I live in the piedmont of western North Carolina, just far enough from Helene’s eye to have been spared the worst of the storm’s destruction, but close enough to where its most significant impacts were felt to have first-hand knowledge of the impacts and of locals’ impressions of the government’s response.

Let me just put it this way: the storm was “biblical” as one local emergency official put it and the state and federal response was found to be wanting.

Somewhere in the state capital of Raleigh, they are likely planning historical markers describing the devastation to be erected once there are roads to put them along.

Playing Politics?

Of course, Helene wasn’t the only major hurricane to strike of late. On October 9, Hurricane Milton arrived in Florida near Siesta Key and drove across the Sunshine State, clipping Orlando and exiting on the Atlantic Coast early the next day.

As The Hill reported, Vice President (and Democratic presidential nominee) Kamala Harris got into a spat with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in advance of the storm:

    Harris called DeSantis “selfish” Monday [October 7] amid reports the governor refused to take her call after Hurricane Helene hit his state. The governor, a chief foil of the Biden administration, hit back Tuesday, suggesting the vice president was “trying to parachute in” because she’s the Democratic candidate for the White House.

Not surprisingly, Harvard-Harris asked respondents: “Do you think Kamala Harris responded well to the hurricanes or was she playing politics with the hurricanes?”

Voters were split on the question with half (50 percent) stating that she responded well and the other half (50 percent) believing she was playing politics.

There was a strong partisan lean on the question, with 86 percent of Democratic respondents stating that she responded well and 84 percent of GOP voters asserting that she was playing politics. For their part, 54 percent of Independents saw politics in the response, and 46 percent of the unaligned thought Harris responded appropriately.

FEMA Money for Housing Illegal Immigrants?

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is the federal government’s main disaster relief component, and it received mixed marks from the locals over its response to Helene.

That’s more or less how FEMA gets treated in the immediate aftermath of any emergency or disaster, but the administration didn’t do the agency many favors.

During October 2 remarks in Augusta, Ga., for example, Vice President Harris told affected residents “the federal relief and assistance that we have been providing has included FEMA providing $750 for folks who need immediate needs being met, such as food, baby formula, and the like. And you can apply now”.

That was likely cold comfort to people who had lost everything, and who had no access to electricity or even cellular communications.

FEMA is a component of DHS, and the same day that Harris was in Georgia, the department’s secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, took to the White House rostrum to complain:

    We — we are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have. We are expecting another hurricane hitting. We do not have the funds. FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season and what — what is imminent.

That sounded like the secretary was leaving the survivors of Helene in the lurch, and prompted many, both in the media and outside the Beltway Bubble, to assess how the agency was spending its money.

What they discovered was something that I but few others had discussed in the past: FEMA administers a fund that was originally set up for homeless vets, the elderly, and tribal members but that has been transformed into a money source for NGOs and communities in providing for released migrants. (Seer this week’s episode of the Center’s “Parsing Immigration Policy” podcast for more background on this.)

That fund – the Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP), aka: EFSP-Humanitarian, aka: the Shelter and Services Program (SSP) – had swelled from a modest $30 million program in FY 2019 to a $650 million cash bonanza in FY 2024 as the Biden-Harris administration cut loose millions of illegal migrants encountered by CBP at the Southwest border into towns and cities across the United States.

Many would-be voters were not happy to find that FEMA’s doling out hundreds of millions of dollars for migrants while the vice president was offering $750 payments to affected Americans in Appalachia.

I quickly wrote a post explaining that SSP money was separate from FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund (DRF), “the largest source of federal financial assistance after disasters”, but I may have been barking up the wrong tree: Many were shocked to find out that any FEMA money was going to migrants.

Harvard-Harris plainly had a better sense of the zeitgeist, however, because directly after they asked respondents whether the vice president responded well to Helene and Milton (responses presented on the same slide), they posed the following question: “Should any FEMA money have gone to housing immigrants here illegally, or should FEMA funds have not gone to that purpose?”

In response, 67 percent of the registered voters polled said that FEMA should not be paying to house illegal migrants (including 51 percent of Democrats and 73 percent of Independents), while just 33 percent believed that FEMA should be making such payouts. That’s an even 2-to-1 split in opposition to ESFP/ESFP-H/SSP.

https://cis.org/Arthur/Hurricanes-Lead-Surge-Voter-Concern-about-Immigration

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