DHS shutdown impacts FEMA’s disaster response capabilities, expert warns

INTERMEDIATE: A partial government shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security could have a negative impact on local disaster response without the help of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, a public safety expert warned.

In an interview with Fox News Digital, Jeffrey Halstead, director of strategic accounts at Genasys, a communications hardware and software provider to help communities during disasters, said the DHS shutdown could impact emergency response and recovery efforts now that FEMA support is limited.

“Every time the government goes into one of these shutdowns, there is a different part of the federal government that is involved, both to review the grant program or to distribute the funds from the grant programs that were previously awarded. This is the area of ​​DHS and FEMA that affects emergency management, emergency response and recovery of different cities, states, and counties when they have to deal with severe weather and disaster.

Halstead, who is also a retired Fort Worth, Texas, police chief with more than 30 years in law enforcement, described the federal shutdown as delaying federal funding “has a huge impact” on local disaster response.

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“I know for myself, I was in Arizona for over 21 years, in Texas as a police chief for over seven years, then I was in Nevada for a long time, and I worked directly with several states in the Western United States,” he said.

“The last government shutdown pretty much ended their grant application process, meaning grants will not be approved, awarded and/or funds disbursed,” he continued. “This greatly affects their ability to plan and coordinate their many planned response events. In Arizona, in the central region of the UASI or the Urban Area Security Initiative, they do not have their updated grants, which replace outdated equipment training, vehicles and funding so that each quarter they can meet the standards and be ready if something happens.”

This comes as the Trump administration has ordered FEMA to halt the deployment of hundreds of relief workers to disaster areas across the country during the DHS shutdown.

More than 300 FEMA disaster responders were preparing for upcoming assignments, but were told to suspend their travel plans. Grant programs are also not fully operational until law enforcement reaches an agreement to fund the department.

“The biggest impact is funding, grants are allocated and all that equipment and training is prepared so they can have a successful year preparing for a disaster,” said Halstead.

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More than 300 FEMA disaster responders were preparing for upcoming assignments, but were told to suspend their travel plans. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

“In the event of a severe weather event, critical incident or something that would require FEMA support, FEMA personnel or FEMA resources, those may not be available,” he added. “This has a huge impact on the cooperative efforts of the city, state, district and federal that are actually used, coordinated and resources are used, sometimes within 12 hours. So this greatly hinders their ability to plan effectively in the event of a critical incident, disaster, or weather-related event. They will not have all these government assets and resources that have come to both events, and their operations where they are working in a disaster or a past disaster. They respond and they provide support.”

As part of the move to end FEMA deployments, workers currently working on major recovery efforts will remain at the sites and cannot return home unless their work ends, but no new workers can join or release them without DHS approval.

Recovery efforts continue in places like North Carolina, where Hurricane Helene devastated the region in the fall of 2024.

As Halstead noted, the recovery effort is “the last part of the emergency management cycle to get back to normal for that region.”

“When that has a big impact, you still see some areas of North Carolina a few years later still struggling to complete the recovery phase,” he said. “That’s directly related to all these stalls and FEMA delays, FEMA funding and financial support needed to complete the recovery phase.”

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FEMA employees working on major recovery efforts will remain at the sites and cannot return home unless their work ends, but no new employees can join or release them without DHS approval. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Asked about the importance of federal funding given recent severe weather across the US such as snow on the East Coast, floods in California and wildfires in the High Plains that have forced people to evacuate, Halstead said it is “very important” and that funding delays could affect the safety of local residents.

“It’s very important for emergency managers, your fire departments and law enforcement, to not only use these relationships and resources, but also the allocation of funds so that they can effectively plan for response, for disaster management, and then get into that recovery mode … And then sometimes that delay, it’s going to impact the safety and well-being of the American people,”

Republicans and Democrats in Congress have not reached an agreement to end the partial shutdown, in large part because of Democrats’ demand for stronger oversight and reforms of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) following the fatal shooting of two US citizens last month by federal agents in Minneapolis, which the GOP has so far resisted.

President Donald Trump argued earlier this week that the “Democrat shutdown” had “nothing to do with the Republicans.”

Halstead said he would like lawmakers on Capitol Hill to negotiate in good faith to end the shutdown so that first responders have “effective ways to do our jobs more safely and more efficiently.”

Recovery efforts continue in places like North Carolina, where Hurricane Helene devastated the region in the fall of 2024. (Travis Long/The News & Observer/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

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“I know that many people are upset because they are raising an important political issue regarding the single funding agreement that should have been approved immediately,” he said. “This has happened a lot in the last two to three years. We’ve seen shutdown after shutdown. What many citizens don’t realize is that when the government shuts down, all of this work — grant reviews, proposals, funding, spending — is all delayed. Then there’s a significant amount of time to get back to open government.”

“They’re still debating all of these very divisive political topics not just on Capitol Hill, but really in our country,” Halstead added. “Then all of those backlogs are now taking longer to get approved, funded and disbursed. So it’s a cumulative effect for all of our emergency managers and our first responders to do their jobs effectively.”

Halstead stressed that a deal to reach a shutdown is unlikely before Trump’s State of the Union address next week, when the president has confirmed he will deliver the speech regardless, and that continued delays in FEMA funding could last weeks.

“It could be at least another two weeks until we get funding and reopen,” Halstead said. “But we still have this huge backlog. It’s going to take a lot of time.”