(LifeSiteNews) — A Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) employee who ordered relief workers in Lake Placid, Florida, to skip over homes that showed support for President-elect Donald Trump in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton was fired last week.
FEMA supervisor Marn’i Washington was fired from the agency after a Daily Wire report revealing that she had instructed employees canvassing neighborhoods hit by Milton not to approach homes “advertising Trump,” resulting in at least 20 homes being denied relief. After the firing, Washington defended her actions, saying she was simply following agency guidelines to avoid “hostile” communities.
“More than 22,000 FEMA employees every day adhere to FEMA’s core values and are dedicated to helping people before, during and after disasters, often sacrificing time with their own families to help disaster survivors. Recently, one FEMA employee departed from these values to advise her survivor assistance team to not go to homes with yard signs supporting President-elect Trump. This is a clear violation of FEMA’s core values and principles to help people regardless of their political affiliation. This was reprehensible,” FEMA administrator Deanna Criswell said in a press release.
“We take our mission to help everyone before, during and after disasters seriously. This employee has been terminated and we have referred the matter to the Office of Special Counsel. I will continue to do everything I can to make sure this never happens again,” Criswell added.
While canvassing the Lake Placid area, Washington told relief workers both verbally and in a Microsoft Teams message tbtained by The Daily Wire that it would be “best practice” to “avoid homes advertising Trump.” Photos from FEMA’s system show that workers logged multiple addresses as “not able to access property” and wrote explanations such as “Trump sign no entry per leadership.”
By skipping over houses with Trump signs, homeowners were denied the opportunity to receive federal aid for damage to their property.
One Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employee who volunteered to help due to FEMA being short-staffed told The Daily Wire that they traveled to Florida to make a difference and not discriminate against Trump supporters at their most vulnerable.
“When we got there, we were told to discriminate against people. It’s almost unbelievable to think that somebody in the federal government would think that’s okay,” the employee said.
“It didn’t matter if people were black, white, Hispanic, for Trump, for Harris. Everyone deserves the same amount of help,” they added.
A FEMA spokesperson pointed LifeSiteNews to the agency’s statement on Washington’s firing but declined to provide further comment.
In an interview on the Roland Martin Unfiltered Daily Digital Show a few days after being fired, Washington defended her decision, saying it was not politically motivated, and noted that she didn’t vote in the 2024 election. Washington then claimed she only directed for these homes to be passed over after facing hostility and being “verbally abused” by several of the homeowners.
“Once we start seeing a trend, for example, if they just so happen to have these Trump campaign signs in front of their home, and that’s the characteristic that’s coming along with that, we have to proceed with precaution,” Washington said in the interview.
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody filed a lawsuit against FEMA and Washington on Wednesday for conspiring to violating the civil rights of Florida citizens whose homes were skipped over for their support of the President-elect.
The Biden-Harris administration has faced sharp criticism for its slow response to Hurricanes Milton and Helene and lack of federal support for affected areas while sending billions of dollars to foreign countries like Ukraine. The hurricanes notably devastated areas with strong Trump support in crucial states like Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina just weeks before the presidential election.
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