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DHS shutdown leaves local emergency responders on their own amid extreme weather, expert warns

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EXCLUSIVE: The partial government shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security could have a critical impact on local disaster response without assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, a public safety expert warned.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Jeffrey Halstead, the 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 has been restricted.
«Every time that the government enters into one of these shutdowns, there’s a distinctive part of the federal government that is impacted, both reviewing the grant program or distributing funds from pre-awarded grant programs. This is exactly the area of DHS as well as FEMA that affects emergency managers, emergency response and recovering different cities, counties, and regions should they face a weather and/or disaster-related event,» Halstead said.
Halstead, also a retired chief of police in Fort Worth, Texas, with more than 30 years in law enforcement, explained that government shutdowns delaying federal funds «drastically impacts» the local response to disasters.
ICE SHUTDOWN FIGHT MIGHT RESTRICT FEMA, COAST GUARD TO ‘LIFE-THREATENING’ EMERGENCIES
The Trump administration ordered FEMA to suspend the deployment of hundreds of aid workers to disaster-torn areas across the country during the DHS shutdown. (Al Drago/Getty Images)
«I know personally, I was in Arizona for over 21 years, in Texas as chief of police for over seven, and then I was in Nevada for a long time, and I worked directly with a few states in the Western United States,» he said.
«The last government shutdown pretty much ended their grant application process, meaning the grants would not be approved, not even be assigned and/or funds not released,» he continued. «This drastically impacts their ability to plan and to coordinate a lot of their planned response events. In Arizona, the central UASI region or the Urban Area Security Initiative, they have none of their grants being reviewed, which replaces outdated equipment, vehicles and funds training so that every quarter they can meet the standards and then be ready should something happen.»
This comes as the Trump administration ordered FEMA to suspend the deployment of hundreds of aid workers to disaster-torn areas across the country during the DHS shutdown.
More than 300 FEMA disaster responders were preparing for upcoming assignments, but were told to halt their travel plans. Grant systems are also not fully operational until lawmakers can reach a deal to fund the department.
«The biggest impact is funding, the grants being distributed and then getting all that equipment and training aligned so that they can actually have a very successful year getting ready for a disaster,» Halstead said.
DHS SHUTDOWN EXPLAINED: WHO WORKS WITHOUT PAY, WHAT HAPPENS TO AIRPORTS AND DISASTER RESPONSE

More than 300 FEMA disaster responders were preparing for upcoming assignments, but were told to halt their travel plans. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)
«Should there be a traumatic weather event, critical incident or something that would require FEMA support, FEMA staff or FEMA resources, those may not be available,» he added. «This drastically impacts the city, county, state and federal collaboration efforts that literally are immediately engaged, aligned and resources deployed, sometimes within 12 hours. So this greatly inhibits their ability to plan effectively should a critical event, disaster event, or weather-related event come their way. They won’t have all these federal assets and resources that they have come to depend on, rely on, and work with in both their planning as well as training events or previous disasters where they responded and provided support.»
As part of the move to end FEMA deployments, staffers currently working on major recovery efforts will remain on the sites and cannot return home unless their assignment ends, but no new personnel can join or relieve them without DHS approval.
Recovery efforts are still ongoing in places like North Carolina, where Hurricane Helene devastated the region in the fall of 2024.
As Halstead noted, the recovery effort is the «final piece for the emergency management cycle to get back to normalcy for that region.»
«When that is dramatically impacted, you still see some areas of North Carolina a couple of years later still struggling in the recovery phase being completed,» he said. «That is directly related to all of these stalls and delays in FEMA, FEMA funding and the financial support needed to get the recovery phase completed.»
PARTIAL GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN DRAGS ON AS DHS FUNDING TALKS STALL

FEMA staffers working on major recovery efforts will remain on the sites and cannot return home unless their assignment ends, but no new personnel can join or relieve them without DHS approval. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Asked about the importance of federal funding given recent extreme weather across the U.S. such as snow on the East Coast, flooding in California and fire disasters in the High Plains that forced evacuations, Halstead said it is «extremely critical» and that the delay in funds can impact the safety of local residents.
«It’s absolutely extremely critical for emergency managers, your fire departments as well as law enforcement, to utilize not just these partnerships and the resources, but the funding allocations so that they can plan effectively in responding, operational control of the disaster, and then getting into that recovery mode … Then sometimes that delay, it’s going to impact the safety and the welfare of Americans,» Halstead explained.
Republicans and Democrats in Congress have yet to reach a deal to end the partial shutdown, in large part due to Democrats’ demand for stricter oversight and reforms of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) following the fatal shootings last month of two U.S. citizens by federal agents in Minneapolis, which the GOP has thus far resisted.
President Donald Trump argued earlier this week that it is a «Democrat shutdown» and «has nothing to do with Republicans.»
Halstead said he would like lawmakers on Capitol Hill to negotiate in good faith to end the shutdown so that first responders will have «effective means to do our jobs safely and very, very efficiently.»

Recovery efforts are still ongoing 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 a lot of people are really upset because they leverage a significant political issue over a common funding agreement that should have been approved very quickly,» he said. «This has happened a lot in the last two to three years. We’ve seen shutdown after shutdown after shutdown. What a lot of citizens don’t realize is that when the government is shut down, all of this work — grant reviews, proposals, funding, disbursements — those are all delayed. Then there is a significant lag time getting back to an open government.»
«They’re still negotiating all these extremely politically sensitive topics that are really divisive within not just Capitol Hill, but really our country,» Halstead added. «Then all of that backlog is now taking even longer to get approved, funded and funds being dispersed. So it’s a compounding effect on all of our emergency managers and our first responders to do their jobs effectively.»
Halstead highlighted that a deal to reach the shutdown is unlikely before Trump’s State of the Union address next week, in which the president affirmed he would give the speech regardless, and that the ongoing delays in FEMA funding could last weeks.
«It may be another two weeks at least until we can get this funded and get it back open,» Halstead said. «But then we still have these significant backlogs. It will take a significant amount of time.»
government shutdown,homeland security,fema,disasters us,politics,weather,exclusive
INTERNACIONAL
PHOTOS: Anti-ICE agitators dox agents by sending warning postcards to neighbors

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EXCLUSIVE: Activists and agitators opposed to enforcement of federal immigration laws have found a new, intrusive way to dox or leak personal and identifying information of ICE and CBP agents, the Department of Homeland Security exclusively told Fox News Digital Tuesday.
Immigration agents continue to face an escalating 8,000% increase in death threats and a 1,300% increase in assaults since President Donald Trump took office in January 2025, according to DHS.
An ICE agent living in Wake County, North Carolina, was doxxed in recent days, as evidenced by postcards sent to the officer’s neighbors with language suggesting they needed to be warned of his presence on their block.
«Beware, your neighbor is an ICE agent. Immigration enforcement lives next door,» the postcard said in billboard-style font festooned with a generic image of a federal agent and a mock-up of an ICE badge addressed to a resident in Raleigh.
DEMOCRATIC OFFICIALS, TIKTOKERS, LIBERALS TAKE THEIR ANTI-ICE RHETORIC TO THE NEXT LEVEL
Federal law enforcement agents detain a demonstrator during a raid in south Minneapolis. An Oklahoma man was charged with threatening to kill ICE agents, «MAGA Republicans» and politicians, the Justice Department said Wednesday. (Getty Images)
The message section of the postcard shared with Fox News Digital showed what appeared to be a still shot from CCTV footage depicting a Black federal immigration agent. DHS blurred the agent’s face, which was not blurred in the original mailing.
DHS Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis told Fox News Digital the doxxing only adds to threats because agents «risk their lives every single day to remove murderers, pedophiles, rapists, terrorists and gang members from American neighborhoods.»
Fox News Digital also noticed fine print on the doxxing postcard’s postage stamp indicating it was sent «presorted first-class,» a special subset of USPS business mail that requires the sender to mail at least 500 pieces, each weighing 3.5 ounces or less.
Presorted first-class also requires more than typical local «junk mail» granted presorted standard postage, which indicates at least 50 such letters or postcards.
That detail indicates that hundreds of such postcards were disseminated around the country.
THE FAR-LEFT NETWORK THAT HELPED PUT ALEX PRETTI IN HARM’S WAY, THEN MADE HIM A MARTYR
«Comparing ICE day-in and day-out to the Nazi Gestapo, the Secret Police and slave patrols has consequences,» Bis said Tuesday. «The men and women of ICE are fathers and mothers, sons and daughters. They get up every morning to try and make our communities safer.
«Like everyone else, they just want to go home to their families at night. The violence and dehumanization of these men and women who are simply enforcing the law must stop.»

An ICE Agent was doxxed in this postcard sent to a North Carolina resident. (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
The news comes weeks after identifying information for a reported 4,500 ICE and USBP employees was allegedly leaked by a DHS whistleblower to an Irish national who runs a website called the «ICE list.»
After the shooting death of Renee Good in January, Dominick Skinner received the massive dataset, The Daily Beast reported. The outlet quoted the website administrator as saying information about ICE agents’ identities flooded in.
Some people told him their neighbors were allegedly immigration agents, while hotel and bar staff reportedly sent him sticky notes, according to the outlet.

A postcard doxxing ICE agents was sent in North Carolina. (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
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Skinner, who now lives in the Netherlands but has American family, told the outlet the website was not supposed to turn into a database but suggested it was a response to then-Secretary Kristi Noem warning people stateside they could be prosecuted for doxxing.
Anyone who receives similar postcards or paraphernalia doxxing DHS agents is advised to contact ICE’s tip line at (866) DHS-2-ICE or (866) 347-2423.
homeland security, police and law enforcement, immigration, enforcement, fox news investigates
INTERNACIONAL
Las memorias de una feminista millennial sobre el poliamor pueden ser desgarradoras

Hace dos años, Megan Agnew, redactora de The Sunday Times en Londres, causó furor en internet con su perfil certero e inquietante sobre Hannah Neeleman, una exbailarina que se mudó a una granja en Utah con su esposo, tenía —en ese momento— ocho hijos y se convirtió en una exitosa influencer del movimiento tradwife. El artículo resultaba llamativo por la disonancia entre la historia que Neeleman y su esposo intentaban contar —la realización personal a través de la tradición— y los detalles que insinuaban una realidad más oscura.
“Daniel quería vivir en los grandes parajes salvajes del Oeste, así que lo hicieron; quería ser agricultor, así que lo son; le gustan las citas nocturnas una vez por semana, así que salen”, escribió Agnew. “No quería niñeras en la casa, así que no las hay”. Hannah bajó la voz al confesar que durante uno de sus partos, cuando Daniel no pudo estar presente, le pusieron una epidural. Habló con nostalgia de la carrera de danza que abandonó. Daniel le comentó a Agnew que, en ocasiones, Hannah se encuentra tan exhausta que pasa una semana en cama. En Instagram, algunos usuarios le pedían a Hannah que parpadeara dos veces si necesitaba ayuda.
Las memorias Adult Braces de Lindy West, que han generado amplio debate, evocan una inquietud similar, aunque con la política en sentido opuesto. West había sido una figura destacada del feminismo digital de los años 2000 y un símbolo de la positividad corporal; su anterior autobiografía, Shrill, fue adaptada a una serie de televisión. Pero detrás de esa fachada, revela su nuevo libro, sufría un dolor extraordinario, con relaciones distorsionadas tanto con su cuerpo como con su esposo. Aunque ahora afirma haber encontrado paz y empoderamiento tras acceder a la exigencia de su esposo de tener un matrimonio poliamoroso, su relato no resulta del todo convincente.

No sorprende que algunos interpreten “Adult Braces” como una crítica a las creencias progresistas de West. Un ensayo en The Atlantic sobre el libro llevaba el título “La muerte del feminismo millennial”. The Wall Street Journal declaró: “El progresismo destruye a sus siervos más leales”. Pero interpreté el libro de West como una advertencia sobre la autoanulación femenina. Esa tendencia suele celebrarse en sectores conservadores, pero siempre ha estado presente en la izquierda también. Prácticamente cualquier ideología puede utilizarse para hacer sentir a las mujeres que están fallando.
En textos anteriores, West presentaba su unión con el músico Ahamefule Oluo, conocido como Aham, como una especie de final de cuento de hadas feminista. “Mi boda fue perfecta, y estuve gorda todo el tiempo”, tituló una columna en The Guardian en 2015. Pero si la boda fue idílica, West revela en “Adult Braces” que el matrimonio no lo fue. Casi desde el principio, escribe, Aham condicionó la relación a que él pudiera acostarse con otras mujeres. Ella accedió porque no quería perderlo, pero sus aventuras la hicieron sentir una inseguridad insoportable.
Como West vivía en un entorno progresista donde la no monogamia es habitual, sentía una capa extra de vergüenza por no poder aceptar la vida sexual extramatrimonial de Aham. (“En ese momento, ser comprensiva con el poliamor parecía un imperativo creciente en los círculos progresistas”, escribe). Su angustia aumentaba por un fuerte rechazo hacia su propio cuerpo, que, según ella misma reconoce, contradice la imagen que había construido públicamente. “¿Crees que alguna vez sentí que merecía exigirle algo a un hombre?”, pregunta.

Para muchos lectores, incluido yo, parecía que Aham se aprovechó de la profunda falta de autoestima de West. Utilizó su ideología en su contra; West cuenta que Aham, que es mitad nigeriano, “creía que la monogamia era, en esencia, un sistema de propiedad”. No es la primera vez que un hombre de izquierda emplea el lenguaje de la liberación para traspasar los límites de una mujer. Tras la revolución sexual de los años 60 y 70, Ellen Willis describió cómo los hombres de la contracultura “intensificaron las ansiedades sexuales de las mujeres al equiparar la represión con el deseo de amor y compromiso, y exaltar el sexo sin emoción ni apego como el ideal”. Es un ideal que muchas mujeres sienten la presión de cumplir.
Pero West —o al menos la versión de West que narra “Adult Braces”— no logra ver la aparente manipulación de Aham. En cambio, el libro, que transcurre durante un largo viaje por carretera, describe cómo West aprende a aceptar el poliamor y llega a querer a Roya, la novia de Aham, con quien ahora mantiene una relación de tres.
Al final de “Adult Braces”, Aham, Roya y West viven juntos en una cabaña que perteneció a los padres de ella. Se declara feliz, aunque con un tono defensivo: “Si crees que me han lavado el cerebro y que en secreto soy infeliz, sinceramente no sé qué decirte”. Pero aunque se tome al pie de la letra su satisfacción, hay un trasfondo inquietante en la situación, uno que sería evidente si el libro fuera una novela y no unas memorias.

A lo largo de “Adult Braces”, West, que ahora tiene 44 años, hace referencia a sus dificultades con la adultez, en ocasiones con una voz deliberadamente infantil. “¡Solo soy un angelito suave que todos quieren!”, escribe en un momento. Describe cómo, al mudarse sola, le costaba cuidar de sí misma: “Cuando tienes 25 años, nadie se enoja si no limpias tu cuarto”. Le embargaron el auto porque olvidó pagar las cuotas. Cuando estaba deprimida, Aham tenía que obligarla a ducharse y a cepillarse el cabello. Se pregunta si es “una mujer que podría discernir sus propios sentimientos o un bebé que necesita que le digan cuándo divorciarse”. Uno de los mejores días del viaje, se tatúa la frase “good girl”.
West parece añorar el cuidado y la simplicidad de la infancia, y al final del libro encuentra una aproximación a eso. De niña, cuenta, quería vivir en la cabaña a tiempo completo, y ahora lo hace. Roya paga las cuentas puntualmente para que no caigan en agencias de cobro y mantiene relaciones con Aham cuando West no quiere. “Me encanta dormir en el cuarto de invitados y meterme en la cama con ellos en la mañana”, escribe West. “Me encanta cuando me arropan y me dejan jugar con el móvil hasta tarde”. Duerme con un gato de peluche. Es como si, sintiéndose lastimada, hubiera optado por retroceder a una etapa infantil.
Tras la publicación del artículo de Agnew, Neeleman grabó un video en el que decía estar sorprendida por haber sido retratada “como oprimida, con mi esposo como el culpable”, y aseguró que adora a su marido y la vida que llevan. Pienso que es posible creerle y también pensar que adaptó sus deseos a los de su esposo, como se les anima a hacer a muchas mujeres. Si West hizo lo mismo, no es culpa del feminismo millennial ni del liberalismo social. La política no siempre puede salvarnos de la necesidad autoaniquiladora de ser amadas, en los términos que sean.
Fuente: The New York Times
Lindy West,escritora,activista,feminismo,retrato,autora,Jenny Jimenez,Hachette,cultura
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