The Trump administration has asked local governments and nonprofit organizations that received federal grants to identify immigrants they have housed, suggesting in a letter that they may have violated human smuggling laws.
The Department of Homeland Security has “significant concerns” that organizations and governments receiving Federal Emergency Management Agency grants “may be guilty of encouraging or inducing an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States” violating immigration laws, according to a March 11 letter signed by Cameron Hamilton, acting administrator of FEMA.
The three-page letter was first reported by the Associated Press and obtained by The Texas Tribune. In the letter, Hamilton asked that local governments and organizations that have received a grant from FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program respond within 30 days with a list of the names and contact information for immigrants they have assisted.
Hamilton said that moving forward, FEMA will ask recipients of these grants to sign an affidavit stating that no one within the organization or local government has any knowledge or suspicion of violating human smuggling laws.
The letter also says FEMA grants will be withheld as DHS conducts its review.
According to the American Immigration Council, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit organization that advocates for immigrant rights, FEMA grants are not directly given to migrants. As part of the conditions of receiving the money, the groups and municipal governments can only provide aid to migrants who federal immigration officials have already processed.
In fiscal year 2024, the Department of Homeland Security awarded $641 million in grants to nonprofits and municipalities to offset costs incurred for services to recently arrived migrants, according to FEMA’s website.
More than 90 recipients in Texas received a total of more than $133 million in fiscal year 2024. Among them were different chapters of Catholic Charities in Laredo, El Paso, and San Antonio. El Paso, McAllen, Brownsville, San Antonio, Laredo and El Paso County have also received these FEMA grants.
The head of a Brownsville shelter said the work of compiling a list of migrants they assisted would be burdensome since they no longer received the federal funds to pay for staff.
“I can’t hire anybody to work on that,” said Victor Maldonado, executive director of the Bishop Enrique San Pedro Ozanam Center. “I wish we would be able to tap into that funding because we have a lot of expenditures.”
Other cities, counties and organizations that received these grants didn’t immediately respond to requests from The Texas Tribune for comment.
Officials with city and county of El Paso say that they were awarded FEMA grants but ultimately didn’t accept the money in part because of the low number of migrants crossing the Texas-Mexico border recently. According to FEMA’s website, the city and county had been awarded more than $23 million in fiscal year 2024, which ended in September.
FEMA’s letter echoes recent efforts by Texas Attorney Ken Paxton’s office to investigate and shut down Texas nonprofits that aid migrants, which included demanding the names of migrants they have helped and accusing them of violating the state’s human smuggling laws.
Paxton has said he is investigating these groups because Texas Gov. Greg Abbott requested it in December 2022. In a letter, Abbott said he wanted Paxton’s office to investigate “the role of NGOs in planning and facilitating the illegal transportation of illegal immigrants across our borders.”
In February 2024, Paxton’s office demanded documents from Annunciation House, which runs a network of migrant shelters in El Paso, including a list of immigrants the shelter has helped. The attorney general’s office claimed the shelter was violating state law by helping people suspected of being undocumented immigrants. Paxton’s office sued to attempt to shut down Annunciation House. The case is pending before the state Supreme Court.
Last summer, Paxton’s office also tried to depose Sister Norma Pimentel, the executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley in McAllen. But a state judge denied Paxton’s request.
Paxton also sued Houston-based Familias Inmigrantes y Estudiantes — or FIEL — because the nonprofit criticized Texas and the Trump administration’s immigration policies. A state judge denied Paxton’s request to shut down the organization.
Paxton appealed both cases, which are currently pending in state court.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune, a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy.
