The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said on Oct. 21 that a wide-ranging internal investigation found the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) engaged in “textbook political discrimination” during the Biden administration by systematically withholding or delaying disaster aid to Americans whose homes displayed pro-Trump or pro-Second Amendment signs.
The probe, conducted by the DHS Privacy Office, concluded that FEMA employees between 2021 and 2024 recorded citizens’ political beliefs in agency databases, and that those details were sometimes used to bypass or postpone aid to disaster survivors. The conduct, investigators said, violated the Privacy Act of 1974 and other DHS data-handling rules intended to protect Americans’ First Amendment rights.
