{"id":75681,"date":"2025-09-25T11:59:28","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T18:59:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=75681"},"modified":"2025-09-25T11:59:28","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T18:59:28","slug":"from-fema-to-law-enforcement-mass-deportations-erode-public-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=75681","title":{"rendered":"From FEMA to Law Enforcement, Mass Deportations Erode Public Safety"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
By<\/span>Peter Schurmann<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/i>
\n
\n

At a virtual press briefing, experts in disaster relief and law enforcement discussed the impacts to public safety from the White House’s aggressive immigration enforcement policies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\"\"
FEMA disaster relief in New York following Hurricane Sandy. (Image via Picryl)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Law and order were the centerpiece of President Donald Trump\u2019s 2024 campaign, with immigrants repeatedly painted as a threat to the safety of American citizens. Today\u2019s mass deportation agenda is a direct outgrowth of that campaign rhetoric.<\/p>\n

Yet experts say the administration\u2019s dragnet approach to detaining and deporting immigrants is in fact eroding public safety amid rising political violence in the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica needs national leaders who will work to bridge the divide, calm fears and focus on keeping all our communities safe,\u201d said Joanna Kuebler, chief of programs at America\u2019s Voice.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, this administration is pursuing a different track, pledging retribution, stoking division, scapegoating immigrants and pursuing a mass deportation agenda, all of which are at odds with public safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kuebler\u2019s remarks were delivered during a\u00a0September 24 virtual briefing<\/a>\u00a0organized by America\u2019s Voice on the public safety impacts of the administration\u2019s aggressive immigration enforcement tactics.<\/p>\n

The briefing came on the heels of a shooting at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Dallas early Wednesday that claimed the lives of one detainee, leaving two others critically injured. Authorities described the shooter, 29-year-old Joshua Jahn of North Texas, as being ideologically motivated, with the words \u201cANTI-ICE\u201d painted in blue letters on ammunition found at the scene.<\/p>\n

Jahn died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the scene.<\/p>\n

Wednesday\u2019s attack also follows the September 10 killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, part of a string of high-profile attacks in recent months targeting political figures on both the left and the right.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder no circumstances should we allow political violence, nor should we normalize it,\u201d said former Capitol Officer Harry Dunn, who was present during the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. \u201cI endured political violence in its highest form,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Referencing Trump\u2019s remarks during Kirk\u2019s memorial service in which the president declared, \u201cI hate my opponents,\u201d Dunn stressed the need for politicians to \u201cbe very careful\u201d in how they discuss political violence.<\/p>\n

Rafael Lemaitre is the\u00a0former Director of Public Affairs at FEMA. He said the diversion of funds away from the agency and toward stepped-up immigration enforcement leaves communities at heightened risk.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now FEMA is being gutted,\u201d said Lemaitre. \u201cMillions of dollars are being diverted from vital resiliency and mitigation efforts and towards performance politics and mass deportations.\u201d<\/p>\n

In July, the administration announced that it would reallocate $271 million from federal agencies,\u00a0including $155 million from FEMA<\/a>, to support deportation efforts. The increase, along with recent legislation, brings the current ICE budget from its previous $8 billion to more than $28 billion.<\/p>\n

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren called the stripping of FEMA funds a \u201ccruel, dangerous move\u2014especially at the height of hurricane season.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Lemaitre, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 laid bare FEMA\u2019s shortcomings in both capacity and funding. Later administrations, both Democrat and Republican, worked to shore up the agency, which \u201cproved its mettle\u201d in subsequent disasters.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday we are on track to painfully relearn the lessons of Katrina because of the Trump Administration\u2019s hollowing out of the agency,\u201d stressed Lemaitre, noting a 20% staffing cut, the cessation of training for first responders, and the cancellation of contracts for sheltering and logistics.<\/p>\n

As for deportations, Lemaitre said the ongoing raids by ICE and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents are eroding trust in federal agencies in some of the country\u2019s most vulnerable communities. FEMA, he said, \u201cneeds to have trust so people listen, and lives are saved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former ICE Chief of Staff\u00a0Jason Houser was also scheduled to speak during Wednesday\u2019s briefing but was unable to attend given the events earlier in the day in Dallas.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0testimony delivered before Congress in May<\/a>, Houser echoed Lemaitre, saying tactics targeting immigrants regardless of whether they have prior criminal convictions \u201cput ICE officers at greater physical risk, weaken community trust, and undermine effective enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Data suggest that up to 70% of those in ICE detention have no criminal background.<\/p>\n

The net effect, Houser added, is to make the job of immigration enforcement \u201cmore complex and dangerous,\u201d increasing the likelihood of a public backlash and complicating efforts to target genuine safety threats. ICE agents become \u201cthe face of a broken system,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

ACoM reached out to Houser for comment but did not hear back by the time of publication.<\/p>\n

Concern for the safety of immigration officers has been cited by the administration as one reason for the masking of ICE agents. But according to Dunn, while threats to law enforcement are an everyday reality, public safety \u201coverrides\u201d the concerns of officers who are themselves public servants.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen law enforcement feels empowered and that there are no consequences, that is a recipe for disaster,\u201d said Dunn, adding, \u201cWe need to build trust.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ByPeter Schurmann Sep 24, 2025 At...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","category-u-s-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75681"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75682,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75681\/revisions\/75682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}