Former FEMA Official Fired Over Illegal Immigrant Hotel Payments Files Lawsuit

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It comes weeks after DOGE said it found that FEMA paid millions of dollars to house illegal immigrants in a luxury hotel.

A former federal disaster response official filed a lawsuit against the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), saying she was falsely accused of illegally distributing funds to New York City to book luxury hotels for illegal immigrants.

Mary Comans, the former chief financial officer at FEMA, was terminated by the Trump administration weeks ago after the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) said it found a nearly $60 million payment sent to hotels in New York City to house illegal immigrants.
In a lawsuit filed this week in a Washington federal court against FEMA and the DHS, Comans alleged she was “widely, publicly, and falsely condemned” by social media influencers, including Elon Musk, who leads DOGE, as she was let go from FEMA.

It also included a screenshot of a post by Musk on social media platform X where he responded with a comment saying, “a criminal action,” to allegations against her.

Her lawsuit also claimed that Comans was fired “without any warning” and that the Trump administration had “failed to undertake any process to enable Ms. Comans to appropriately respond” to allegations about the funding and that she had no “prior disciplinary history” within the agency.

“Additionally, the defendants falsely, deliberately, and publicly portrayed Ms. Comans’ actions in such a manner that third parties have asserted her conduct to have been criminal, which is defamation per se, thereby further contributing to the damages she has suffered,” her filing added. She also alleged that the DHS issued a news release that falsely said she was fired for circumventing orders by making the hotel payments.

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Comans requested that a judge declare that both FEMA and DHS’s actions to fire her were illegal. She also requested the court rule to provide her with monetary damages.

In an interview with CBS News on Thursday, Comans repeated claims that she made in her lawsuit.

“I was fired illegally by the Trump administration for doing my job, for doing exactly what I was directed to do by the Trump political appointees at the Department of Homeland Security and at the DOGE,” she told the outlet. “They told me to do these actions, to make these payments, and then they fired me.”

Comans said she had spoken with the acting FEMA director about the hotel claims and that the payment to New York City was recouped.

“I shared with him that I had successfully reversed the payment and the funds were being returned to Treasury as we speak,” she said.

The New York City mayor’s office said last month that it received a total of $81 million earlier in February in federal government payments to house illegal immigrants.

That total was provided in two transfers, one of which was valued at about $59 million. New York City spokesperson Liz Garcia said that the $81 million covered reimbursements for hotel, security, food, and other costs running from November 2023 to October 2024. The city applied in April 2024 for that money, which was appropriated by Congress and allocated by FEMA.

On Feb. 10, Musk wrote on X that DOGE found there were payments made and authorized by FEMA to the hotels, which he said were supposed to be for disaster relief efforts.

“The @DOGE team just discovered that FEMA sent $59M last week to luxury hotels in New York City to house illegal migrants,” Musk wrote on X at the time. “Sending this money violated the law and is in gross insubordination to the President’s executive order. That money is meant for American disaster relief and instead is being spent on high end hotels for illegals! A clawback demand will be made today to recoup those funds.”

The Epoch Times contacted DHS for comment Friday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Original News Source Link – Epoch Times

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