Washington DC - President Donald Trump's administration ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency to stop deployments to disaster areas while the Department of Homeland Security remains shut down.

According to sources and messages acquired by CNN, if personnel want to travel to areas recovering from natural disasters, they must now request permission directly from DHS leadership.

As a result, more than 300 FEMA personnel who were preparing for deployment were instead told to stand down.

CNN reports that FEMA staff that were already on deployment are unable to return home and instead must stay in the field.

"If we can’t get people to Florida or North Carolina to help validate damages from Helene, we can’t approve funding for those projects," an anonymous FEMA official told CNN.

"If we can't staff a Disaster Recovery Center in Washington State or Alaska, how can people get help with their assistance applications?"

The DHS was partially shut down on Saturday after the budget for US Customs and Immigration Enforcement was blocked by Congress.

A statement put out by FEMA denied that travel has been cancelled but admitted that "some non-essential activities will be paused or scaled back."

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Tuesday blamed the shutdown on the Democrats and claimed that they had shut down FEMA, which is funded via the independent and readily available Disaster Relief Fund.

"Democrats are withholding paychecks from the men and women of [FEMA] while they clean up this Democrat-created disaster," Noem said in reference to the Potomac sewage spill. "Unbelievable hypocrisy."

"Ultimately it's not a huge blow yet, but just another measure that makes it harder for survivors to get the help they need," another FEMA official told CNN. "It's yet another way they continue to bleed us out."