Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is out of money as it scrambles to help flood-ravaged areas of Georgia and North Carolina. Stranded residents are begging for help and reporting that the federal government has yet to show up or provide any aid in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

Mr. Mayorkas said FEMA needs additional federal funding, but Republicans in Congress are angry over the agency’s massive spending on illegal immigrants while desperate flood victims await help more than a week after the storm.

Donnie Loftis, a Republican in the state legislature, said Hendersonville, North Carolina, has seen no sign of FEMA or any other federal entity.

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“I haven’t seen any federal folks. I haven’t seen FEMA or local emergency crews. It’s just neighbor helping neighbor,” Mr. Loftis told The Washington Times.

Mr. Loftis delivered much-needed supplies Thursday to a church in Hendersonville, about 30 minutes north of Asheville. It was one of the hardest-hit areas in the state. He said the church is providing supplies, water and pet food to those impacted by the storm.

Those supplies, Mr. Loftis said, came from nearby churches that rose to the occasion, not the state or federal government.

“I think it is insufficient,” he said. “People say they’ve seen nothing from the federal government out here.”

The criticism has risen with revelations that programs under FEMA spent more than $1 billion over the past two years, including $380 million allocated in late August, to help communities settle thousands of illegal immigrants encountered at the southern border and released into communities across the U.S. The money was provided by Congress and signed into law by the president specifically to pay for housing and services for illegal immigrants, who have flooded into the U.S. in record numbers under the Biden administration.

At a campaign rally, former President Donald Trump said President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris had again put migrants ahead of Americans.

“The Harris-Biden administration says they don’t have any money. … They spent it all on illegal migrants,” Mr. Trump told the crowd in Saginaw, Michigan.

He said the administration “stole the FEMA money just like they stole it from a bank so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season.”

Mr. Trump called it “the worst response in the history of hurricanes.”

“A certain president — I will not name him — destroyed his reputation with Katrina. And this is doing even worse,” Mr. Trump said in a reference to former President George W. Bush.

House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, Kentucky Republican, said American citizens were again paying the price for the Biden-Harris administration’s “self-inflicted border crisis.”

“President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris must put Americans first and take action now to reverse their open borders policies that are bleeding Americans dry,” he told The Times.

Mr. Biden faced criticism Thursday for overseeing a slow government response to Helene, which made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane. More than 200 deaths have been reported so far, and hundreds of people are still missing, mainly in North Carolina.

Many are stranded in rural areas where roads and entire towns have been decimated, and they have relied on help from private citizens and organizations because the government hasn’t arrived.

A defensive Mr. Biden disputed claims that his administration was caught off guard by Hurricane Helene and insisted he had a plan in place even before the storm made landfall on Sept. 27.

“Days before the storm hit, I pre-positioned extensive resources on the ground throughout the Southeast, extensively — first responders, search and rescue teams, food, water, ambulances — before Helene made landfall,” Mr. Biden said after touring the damage in Ray City, Georgia.

He said he had approved disaster relief funding before the storm, unlocking federal aid for the states impacted by the hurricane, including Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.

Mr. Biden announced Wednesday that he would deploy 1,000 active-duty soldiers to North Carolina to speed the delivery of food, water and medicine to isolated parts of the state, which faces the highest death toll from Helene.

Mr. Mayorkas, meanwhile, warned that no money is available if another natural disaster strikes.

He said this week that FEMA is out of disaster relief money after pouring resources into areas decimated by Helene. The storm is expected to cost $26 billion in property damage alone and will take years and billions of dollars to restore impacted areas.

A tropical storm developing in the Gulf of Mexico could impact Florida and other coastal states in the coming days.

The National Hurricane Center said Thursday that the chance of the tropical storm developing into a hurricane was 30%. More storms are expected in October, the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season.

“We are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have. We are expecting another hurricane hitting. We do not have the funds. FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season and what is imminent,” Mr. Mayorkas said at the White House on Wednesday.

Some are calling for lawmakers to return to Capitol Hill to pass an emergency funding measure to help the stricken states. A House aide told The Times that FEMA received a $20 billion boost for disaster mitigation in the temporary funding bill passed by Congress and signed into law by Mr. Biden in September.

“We are urging the administration to take what it has now, which is a lot, get it out the door and get it to the impacted communities where it needs to be,” the aide said.

• Mallory Wilson contributed to this report.