The United States (US) government has released all funds allocated for \u200csecurity at the soccer World Cup, but the ongoing shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has affected planning and coordination, a department official told a Senate hearing on \u200bWednesday.<\/p>\n
“A lot of the planning efforts underway for the World Cup \u200bhave been slowed down, have been delayed due to the \u2060lapse in appropriations, individuals being furloughed,” Christopher Tomney, Director of the DHS \u200bOffice of Homeland Security Situational Awareness, told the Senate Appropriations Committee.<\/p>\n
Intelligence briefings reviewed \u200bby Reuters<\/em> last month warned of the potential for extremists and criminals to target the World Cup, with officials working on preparations for the soccer tournament sounding the alarm \u200bon a delay in allocation of approved security funds.<\/p>\n Tomney said the Federal \u200bEmergency Management Agency (FEMA) has now distributed the $625 million earmarked for security. The 48-team tournament, one \u200cof \u2060the world’s biggest sporting events, will be held in June and July across the US, Canada and Mexico.<\/p>\n “All the funding has been released now. FEMA GO is up and operational,” he said, referring to the disaster agency’s grants \u200bmanagement system.<\/p>\n The DHS shutdown \u200bhas crossed \u2060the two-month mark, with lawmakers in Congress unable to agree on legislation to fund the agency in the wake \u200bof US President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. Trump signed an order earlier \u200bthis month \u2060to pay every DHS employee.<\/p>\n When asked how specifically the shutdown has hampered the agency’s ability to organize the event, Tomney pointed to the departure of hundreds \u2060of \u200btransportation security officers from the Transportation Security Administration.<\/p>\n “We \u200bjust can’t replace that expertise overnight. It has hindered our coordination with state and locals,” he \u200bsaid.<\/p>\n –Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":21798,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-32140","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Tomney said the Federal \u200bEmergency Management Agency (FEMA) has now distributed the $625 million earmarked for security.","published_date":"","news_description":"Tomney said the Federal \u200bEmergency Management Agency (FEMA) has now distributed the $625 million earmarked for security.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32143,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32140\/revisions\/32143"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=32140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}