States say Trump’s continued freeze on much-needed FEMA aid violates a judge’s order

Erin McMahon says the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) owes her state, Oregon, a lot of money, and it’s starting to cause disruptions.

“In total, we’ve got $129 million in federal dollars that are frozen,” said McMahon, the director of Oregon’s Department of Emergency Management. She said FEMA owes Oregon that money for disasters and disaster mitigation for events like severe winter storms, flooding, mudslides and wildfires.

On top of that, McMahon said money to pay the salaries of local emergency managers across the state comes from FEMA.

“ We’re not gonna be able to pay them in April unless we get the funding from the federal government,” she told NPR.

Since January, the Trump administration has held up federal money across many different agencies while it says it’s reviewing the spending. Along with Oregon, Democratic officials from 21 states and the District of Columbia sued, saying the trillions in federal dollars were already allocated by Congress. A federal judge on March 6 ordered that the money start flowing again.

But the states are telling the judge that, in particular with the FEMA funding, the administration is not following his order.

“The Court’s intervention is necessary,” the states wrote in a filing last week, because they “have continued to experience significant obstacles to accessing federal funds.”

FEMA did not respond to NPR’s request for an interview or a statement. But in a court filing, the Trump administration said that it is complying with the court’s injunction. It said the funding is not frozen, it’s just being “reviewed” for fraud, waste or abuse, and that FEMA continues to process payments as quickly as possible.

Still, officials from states including Oregon, Hawaii, Colorado, Arizona and Illinois say they are still waiting on those FEMA payments.

Some individuals have felt the impact of the disruption in funding too.

Jason Frey and his wife live in California and own a condo on Maui. Since the wildfires hit the Hawaiian island nearly two years ago, they’ve been able to offer up their unit to an elderly man who lost his home. FEMA pays the rent.

But two weeks ago, Frey got an email saying that the FEMA rent money would be delayed because of the Trump administration’s spending pause.

“We’ve been really stressed out about it,” Frey told NPR.

Frey called his bank asking if he could get some kind of pause on making his mortgage payments for the condo. The bank said no.

“And so we’re scrambling to figure out, not only that, like, what’s going to happen with the survivor?” Frey said he couldn’t afford to house him for free and worried about having to evict the man living in their condo. “I hate using that word because … this is not his fault.”

Disaster aid recipients have complained in the past about federal money taking a while to arrive. Still, the states suing the Trump administration say this delay is different. There’s been a pattern in other lawsuits against the Trump administration where plaintiffs say the government is not complying with judges’ orders, while the Trump administration argues that it is.

“The administration, the Department of Justice lawyers, are still engaging with the courts,” said Deborah Pearlstein, a law professor at Princeton University who studies limits on presidential power. She says so far no federal court has said that the Trump administration has acted in open defiance of judges’ orders.

“They’re still filing briefs, the courts are filing orders, they’re being responsive,” said Pearlstein.

“ No federal court has issued an order of contempt,” she said, adding, “ but if we see that … that’s a really important blinking red light.”

At least some FEMA money is beginning to flow again. It’s unclear how much and who is getting it. But some groups that work with disaster survivors say they are starting to get payments.

The company that contracts with FEMA to route rent checks to landlords including Frey tells NPR that it has now received a deposit into its account from FEMA and can now pay the landlords housing disaster survivors.

“The relief that we got with that message,” said Frey, “now it sounds like things are going well.”

Still, he said he can’t help but wonder whether there will be ongoing disruptions at FEMA.

“You kind of sit there and think, OK … they’re not gonna put fire survivors on the street,” Frey said, “but then again, you kinda look at what’s happening elsewhere.”

Frey points to the Trump administration trying to shut down entire agencies and worries FEMA might be next. Trump administration officials have talked about eliminating it.

Meanwhile, officials overseeing emergency management for entire states say they’ve been waiting on FEMA money and have plenty of worries of their own.

McMahon says the frozen salary money and talk of eliminating FEMA is stressing out the people she oversees working in emergency management in Oregon.

“ The uncertainty that this has created with them, with their jobs … is really disruptive and it’s truly disappointing,” McMahon said. She said she has people working hard right now responding to flooding in the southern and eastern part of the state, and “this quite frankly is a distraction from what they need to be focused on.”