The claim: FEMA was sent back to North Carolina with $2 billion moved from ‘programs that fund welfare for illegals’

A Jan. 21 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) claims the federal agency that responds to disasters received an influx of money to support hurricane survivors in North Carolina.

“FEMA has been directed back to North Carolina with $2 billion in emergency funds: ‘We transferred it from the programs that fund welfare for illegals. They won’t be needing it,’” reads the post.

It was shared more than 200 times in nine days. Other versions of the claim on Facebook were shared dozens of additional times.

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Our rating: False

The claim originated with a satirical Facebook account. Nothing on the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s website supports the claim, and people in the U.S. illegally generally don’t have access to federally funded public benefits.

Claim about FEMA funds for North Carolina started as satire

On Jan. 24, President Donald Trump visited communities in North Carolina devastated by severe flooding after Hurricane Helene smashed the southeastern U.S. in late September 2024. The death toll from the disaster climbed to 105 people in North Carolina, where about 73,000 homes were also severely damaged or destroyed.

However, the Facebook post’s claim that FEMA was instructed to support North Carolina with funds meant to help people illegally in the U.S. is wrong.

The claim originated with a Jan. 21 Facebook post from an account in the America’s Last Line of Defense satirical network. The account’s intro says, “Nothing on this page is real,” and it commented on its post, saying, “This whole thing was debunked and set straight months ago.”

There is no evidence to support the claim on FEMA’s website or social media accounts.

The Facebook post is an example of what could be called “stolen satire,” where content originally written and presented as satire is reposted in a way that makes it appear to be legitimate news. As a result, readers of the second-generation post are misled, as was the case here.

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Most noncitizens who live in the U.S. face “significant restrictions” when trying to access public benefits paid for by the federal government, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

“This is particularly the case for unauthorized immigrants, who except in very limited circumstances are barred from all federally funded public benefits,” the organization’s website says.

In the aftermath of the hurricane, a false claim that the Biden administration spent disaster relief money on people in the country illegally was amplified by Trump, billionaire Elon Musk and others. The claims wrongly conflated FEMA’s disaster relief fund with a different program meant to help homeless people, USA TODAY reported.

USA TODAY reached out to the social media user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Lead Stories also debunked the claim.

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