Noem Claws Back FEMA Funding of Illegal Immigrant Housing in NYC Hotels

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem speaks to staff for the first time at Department of Homeland Security (DHS) headquarters in Washington on Jan. 28, 2025. Manuel Balce Ceneta/Pool/AFP via Getty Images

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced on Feb. 12 that she had clawed back all of the money distributed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) that recently went toward housing illegal immigrants in New York City hotels.

“FEMA was funding the Roosevelt Hotel that serves as a Tren de Aragua base of operations and was used to house Laken Riley’s killer,” she said on X.

Laken Riley was a 22-year-old nursing student who was murdered on Feb. 22, 2024, in Georgia by an illegal immigrant from Venezuela named Jose Antonio Ibarra. He entered the country illegally in 2022.

The recently passed Laken Riley Act requires any foreign national charged with “any crime that results in death or serious bodily injury to another person” to be detained by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) regardless of whether a court granted them bail from state detention.

Tren de Aragua, designated by the U.S. government as a foreign terrorist organization, is a violent transnational criminal organization out of Venezuela whose members have entered the United States illegally and were responsible for the recent takeover of apartment buildings in Aurora, Colorado.

“Mark my words: There will not be a single penny spent that goes against the interest and safety of the American people,” Noem wrote in her post.

Noem made the announcement the day after FEMA announced that its chief financial officer, Mary Comans, and three other employees were fired for pushing the payment through after acting FEMA administrator Cameron Hamilton said that all such payments had been suspended beginning Feb. 9.

“Effective immediately, FEMA is terminating the employment of four individuals for circumventing leadership to unilaterally make egregious payments for luxury NYC hotels for migrants,” the DHS, which oversees FEMA, said in a statement.

Noem’s clawback is the latest development in a federal funding story that began with Elon Musk announcing that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) discovered on Feb. 10 that $59 million had been paid out by FEMA just a few days prior for housing illegal immigrants in hotels in New York City.

“That money is meant for American disaster relief and instead is being spent on high-end hotels for illegals,” Musk said on Feb. 10. “A clawback demand will be made today to recoup those funds.”

New York City’s mayor’s office stated that it received $81 million that week in two pieces, one of which was valued at about $59 million, according to the Associated Press.

That $81 million, according to New York City spokesperson Liz Garcia, was in reimbursement for the food, hotel, security, and other costs that the city paid out from November 2023 to October 2024. The money was applied for by the city in April 2024 and was appropriated by Congress and allocated by FEMA.

New York City is a right-to-shelter city, currently sheltering 46,000 illegal immigrants, most of whom are families, and has millions of dollars in outstanding reimbursements, which it plans to discuss directly with federal officials.

Hamilton acknowledged on X that the previous Congress passed bills in 2023 and 2024 asking FEMA to put money and resources toward caring for illegal immigrants, and he promised to put an end to it.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in late January to create a review council for FEMA, launching efforts to reform the agency.

“It has lost mission focus, diverting limited staff and resources to support missions beyond its scope and authority, spending well over a billion dollars to welcome illegal aliens,” the president said in his order.

Both Trump and Noem have expressed a desire to get rid of FEMA, at least as it exists today, and let individual states handle disaster relief for their communities to save money and improve efficiency.

“Americans deserve an immediate, effective, and impartial response to and recovery from disasters,” Trump said in his order.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.