The Federal Emergency Management Agency yanked $1.3 million in funds from the Campaign Against Hunger, accusing the group of aiding “illegal aliens.”
By Samantha Maldonado, The City, April 17, 2025, 6:08 p.m.
The Trump administration has cancelled more than $1.3 million in federal emergency grants awarded to a Brooklyn food pantry to feed migrants, after advising the nonprofit it was suspected of violating U.S. law by serving food to “illegal aliens.”
The move leaves the Campaign Against Hunger — which each year serves 17 million meals to over 1.5 million New Yorkers, including thousands of new arrivals — in a lurch.
“To take that much money from any organization that does not have an endowment or a large budget is to take food out of the mouths of those that need it the most,” said Melony Samuels, the CEO and founder of Bedford-Stuyvesant nonprofit. “For those that need food, it’s tough. We are in a sad, tough time.”
The Campaign Against Hunger received a letter on April 1 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency with news that its grants under the Shelter and Services Program were terminated immediately.
The Shelter and Services Program provides funding to nonprofits and government entities to support “noncitizen migrants” after they are released from Department of Homeland Security custody and while they wait for rulings on immigration proceedings. Congress appropriated $650 million for the program in Fiscal Year 2024, including $512,000 for the Campaign Against Hunger and another $60 million to New York City’s budget office, to reimburse the city for costs related to sheltering new arrivals.
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