Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s push for mass deportations isn’t just draining Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s budget, but it’s also causing collateral damage across the entire Department of Homeland Security.
A new memo obtained by CNN reveals that Noem, citing budget pressures, has ordered every DHS contract and grant over $100,000 to cross her desk for personal approval. The directive affects every agency under DHS, including ICE, Customs and Border Protection, the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, and—most critically—the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Officials at FEMA are raising alarms, warning that Noem’s review mandate could delay emergency funding during natural disasters. That’s not an abstract concern: Hurricane season officially began on June 1, and researchers are forecasting that this year’s Atlantic hurricane season will be 125% more active than usual.
“This will hurt nonprofits, states, and small towns. Massive delays feel inevitable,” a FEMA official told CNN.
A former senior FEMA official put it more bluntly.
“It’s bonkers,” they said.
The main concern for FEMA is timing. According to the memo, Noem’s office expects each funding review to take at least five days, which might feel like an eternity when lives are at stake. During past hurricanes, like last year’s Helene and Milton, FEMA obligated as much as $7 billion in a single month. But now that kind of rapid deployment could be stuck in bureaucratic limbo.
“I was shocked. I’ve never seen a control like this put in place. The amount of documentation and explanation that FEMA would have to do to justify expenditures would cause paralysis. If lives are at stake, I believe FEMA staff would either disobey that memo or they’ll quit,” said Michael Coen, FEMA chief of staff for the Biden and Obama administrations.
In a statement to CNN, a DHS spokesperson claimed that the new controls are about “rooting out waste, fraud, [and] abuse,” and that Noem is “delivering accountability to the U.S. taxpayer.”
But the broader context is harder to ignore.
According to Axios, ICE is already $1 billion over budget with more than three months left in the fiscal year, and it could run out of money by July.
President Donald Trump has ordered what he calls “the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History,” with his administration demanding 3,000 arrests per day, a huge jump from the 660 daily average at the start of his first term. That comes with a massive price tag—and now the entire department is scrambling to make the math work.
Noem’s memo requires agencies to submit detailed justifications for each request, including dollar amounts, mission impact, timelines, and more. What was already a complex federal procurement system now faces another layer of political red tape.
And FEMA’s not just concerned about the paperwork. In recent weeks, Noem reportedly installed at least half a dozen DHS officials—most with little to no experience in disaster relief—into FEMA’s front office, where they’re now directing day-to-day operations.
For FEMA staff, it’s starting to feel like a hostile takeover. And it’s not the first time a federal agency has been gutted from the inside out. Just look at what’s happened to the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Education.
It’s not hard to see the writing on the wall. Trump and Noem have both signaled that they plan to phase out FEMA after the 2025 hurricane season, which ends on November 30, shifting the burden of disaster response entirely to the states.
So while ICE may be the immediate money pit, FEMA—and the people who depend on it—could end up paying the price.