The Federal Emergency Management Agency has taken action after it was discovered that one of its employees instructed relief workers to avoid homes with signage supporting President-elect Donald Trump in the aftermath of Hurricanes Milton hitting Florida.

FEMA Disaster Survivor Assistance crew leader for Highland County, instructed workers who were looking for homes that qualified for emergency assistance to “avoid homes advertising Trump” as they searched Lake Placid, Florida, The Daily Wire reported.

The supervisor, who has been identified as Marn’i Washington, sent the message in a group text to workers.

“The government employees told The Daily Wire that at least 20 homes with Trump signs or flags were skipped from the end of October and into November due to the guidance, meaning they were not given the opportunity to qualify for FEMA assistance. Images shared with The Daily Wire show that houses were skipped over by the workers, who wrote in the government system messages such as: ‘Trump sign no entry per leadership,’” the report said.

One relief worker expressed their dismay at the order when they spoke to The Daily Wire.

“I know they’re short-staffed, I thought we could go help and make a difference,” they said. “When we got there we were told to discriminate against people. It’s almost unbelievable to think that somebody in the federal government would think that’s okay.” 

“I volunteered to help disaster victims, not discriminate against them,” the worker said. “It didn’t matter if people were black, white, Hispanic, for Trump, for Harris. Everyone deserves the same amount of help.”

Photos obtained by The Daily Wire of the system used to track what relief workers were doing had “not able to access property” marked with reasons like “Trump sign no entry per leadership,” “Per leadership no stop Trump flag,” “Trump sign,” and “Trump sign, no contact per leadership.”

FEMA spoke to The Daily Wire when reached for comment and excoriated the crew leader.

“We are aware of it and we are taking action at this moment regarding the situation that you’re talking about,” the crew leader’s supervisor, Chad Hershey, said to the Daily Wir.

It issued another press release after the story was published.

“FEMA helps all survivors regardless of their political preference or affiliation and we are deeply disturbed by this employee’s actions. While we believe this is an isolated incident, we have taken measures to remove the employee from their role and are investigating the matter to prevent this from ever happening again,” it said.

“The employee who issued this guidance had no authority and was given no direction to tell teams to avoid these homes and we are reaching out to the people who may have not been reached as a result of this incident. This is a matter that we take extremely seriously and we are doing everything we can to make sure all survivors receive support from FEMA,” the press release said.

“We are horrified that this took place and therefore have taken extreme actions to correct this situation and have ensured that the matter was addressed at all levels,” it said.