For people who grew up in the southeast, August and September mark more than just the transition from summer to autumn. It also marks hurricane season, when residents of almost every southeastern state can be assured they’ll be impacted by at least one hurricane.

Hurricanes are an inevitable part of life in the South, but only slightly more inevitable than the Trump administration making grossly incompetent and cruel decisions. 

A week before then Category 5 Hurricane Dorian’s 185-mile-per-hour winds and 23-foot storm surge pounded the Bahamas before turning north toward mainland U.S., the Trump administration thought it smart to move $271 million in funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the U.S. Coast Guard to buy more beds for the asylum seekers held in detention centers on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Don’t forget that the Trump administration is forcing asylum seekers to stay in detention centers. In the past, the government allowed them to work as they awaited their date in a terribly back-logged immigration court. Vice President Mike Pence justified this by falsely claiming 90% of asylum seekers do not show up to their court date, when Department of Justice figures show the majority do. Not showing up is normally a one-way ticket out of the country.

Trump is taking money from organizations that support people after natural disasters to try to fix a problem he created out of cruelty and xenophobia, as the second-strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean threatens millions. No wonder App State alumnus Brock Long resigned as FEMA director last year.

The only threat that will make Trump take the annual threat of hurricanes seriously is a direct hit on Mar-a-Lago. If Trump faces the realities of losing a home that many southerners and Caribbeans fear every year, our selfish, impressionable and impulsive leader might realize his mistake. But only after he loses his crown jewel.