Page 6 - Florida Sentinel 8-30-19

White House
The Trump Administration Is Taking Millions From
Barack And Michelle Obama Are Buying This Island Retreat For $14.8M
FEMA To Fund Immigration Courts And ICE Jails
The Department of Home- land Security will transfer more than $200 million to Immigration and Customs Enforcement to pay for a massive increase in detention beds and temporary courts at the U. S. border, according to congressional and homeland security officials.
Some of those funds, $155 million, will be diverted from FEMA's disaster relief fund. The fund pays for the federal response to catastrophic events, like hurricanes or wildfires. The funding trans- fer comes as hurricane season ramps up and Tropical Storm Dorian takes aim at Puerto Rico this week.
This $155 million chunk of the funds will go to the courts at the border, which will han- dle cases of asylum-seekers thrust into a program that forces them to remain in Mexico as their cases pro-
ceed, according to Rep. Lu- cille Roybal-Allard, who chairs the House DHS Appro- priations Subcommittee.
To pay for the beds and transportation costs, DHS will transfer $116 million from other components, in- cluding $3.4 million in addi- tional funds from FEMA.
In a letter to Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan, Roybal-Al- lard said she was worried about the money being di- verted from FEMA.
“I have significant con- cerns about the intended use of funds and, consequently, about the tradeoffs between that use and the activities that would otherwise funded from the source accounts, ranging from the procure- ment of Coast Guard assets to the improvement of the Na- tional Cybersecurity Protec- tion System,” she wrote.
Barack and Michelle Obama are reportedly in escrow on this Martha's Vineyard estate.
After years of vacation- ing on Martha's Vineyard, Barack and Michelle Obama may finally be ready to purchase a home on the affluent island off the
coast of Massachusetts. The former president and first lady are reportedly in es- crow on a $14.8 million property in Edgartown.
The Obamas have a
long history of renting on the island, most notably the $18 million house in Chilmark that was dubbed their "summer White House" in 2013.
Obama Gets Political Again, Launches Initiative To Fight Gerrymandering
Former President Barack Obama is back in the political arena, an- nouncing a new initiative to combat partisan gerryman- dering — though Republi- cans say the efforts are really about helping De- mocrats.
The "Redistricting U" program, which is part of the "All on the Line" cam- paign, aims to recruit and train individuals to take up the fight against drawing congressional districts based on partisan interests.
BARACK OBAMA
PAGE 6-B FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY FRIDAY, AUGUST 30, 2019