The timing on this could not be more telling.
On Tuesday morning, Puerto Rico declared a state of emergency as Tropical Storm Dorian was predicted to become a hurricane when it hits the island on Wednesday. And on Tuesday afternoon, NBC News reported that President Trump's administration opted to transfer $251 million in Department of Homeland Security disaster relief to the southern border.
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The bill funding Puerto Rico's disaster relief didn't include Trump's border demands. But that didn't stop the Trump administration this week from reportedly relocating $271 million from DHS — including from FEMA's disaster relief fund — to fund detention and increased immigration hearings. $155 million of that total would go to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, NBC News reports via department officials and a letter sent to FEMA by Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.).
Trump tweeted about the upcoming storm earlier on Tuesday, seemingly lamenting that the emergency spending Congress recently allocated for Puerto Rico wasn't preventing more hurricanes from coming.
$92 billion is actually far less than the amount of disaster funding Puerto Rico has actually received — though it could probably buy a lot of nukes to ward off hurricanes in the first place.
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