Trump :Over $2 billion in military funding were diverted by for immigration Report
Trump : According to a study issued by Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill, the Trump administration took more than $2 billion from US military coffers in 2025 to finance immigration enforcement activities, which put a burden on servicemembers and weakened military preparedness.
The Department of Defense (DoD) has committed billions of dollars for immigration-related missions, according to the report “Draining Defense: Trump’s Immigration Stunts Cost Billions at the Expense of Military Readiness, Morale, and National Security.” Lawmakers claim that this spending is outside the military’s primary national security role.
According to the study, “the Department of Defense (DoD) has dedicated at least $2 billion to supporting immigration enforcement – money that should have gone toward supporting its core national security mission.” The Pentagon intends to spend “billions more” in the next fiscal year.
The congressmen claim that since the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has not returned the majority of the monies, the Pentagon has been forced to take money away from military priorities including infrastructure improvements, training, and housing renovations. According to the study, the diversions have impacted everything from “repairs for elementary schools attended by the children of our servicemembers” to barracks upkeep.
The research details the widespread employment of National Guard units and active-duty soldiers in immigration enforcement. These include deployments to American cities including Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, and Memphis, as well as to the US-Mexico border. According to lawmakers, deployments inside the United States cost an additional $258 million, while deployments at the border alone cost over $1.3 billion.
An estimated $172 million was spent on a military deployment in Los Angeles to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Food, lodging, salary, logistics, transport, and demobilization expenditures for thousands of Marines and National Guard members are all broken out in the study.
Hundreds of millions more were spent on detention activities on military locations. DoD dedicated more than $420 million for detention operations, including more than $363 million at Fort Bliss in Texas, according to the report. The Fort Bliss prison “has already ‘violated at least 60 federal standards for immigrant detention,'” according to the study.
In addition, the Trump administration broke with tradition by increasing the use of Guantánamo Bay for immigration detention. The article claims that in the first month alone, DoD spent around $40 million holding noncitizens there. Citing expenditures for infrastructure, personnel, and transportation, the paper claims that imprisonment at Guantánamo is significantly more expensive than confinement inside the United States.
Deportations often included the use of military planes, which further increased expenses. “Flying a C-17 costs $28,500 per hour, compared with $8,500 per hour for a standard US Immigration and Customs Enforcement flight,” the study said. At least $33.1 million has been spent on deportation flights using military planes as of September 2025, including “$3 million each” trips to India.
The redeployment of military attorneys is another point of emphasis in the report. In addition to taking legal officers away from military justice responsibilities, up to 600 Judge Advocate General (JAG) officers were permitted to act as temporary immigration judges, an action estimated to cost $55 million in compensation and benefits.
The politicians caution about increasing hazards to preparedness in addition to financial expenditures. Unavailable for emergency operations, combat-certified units were transferred to immigration assignments. According to the paper, National Guard deployments also made it harder for governments to react to natural catastrophes like floods and wildfires.
The study demands full payment and a halt to the military’s budget and vital resources being diverted to DHS’s immigration operations, saying that the Trump administration must cease undermining the military’s core mission.
Frequently presented as a national security concern, immigration enforcement has continued to be a defining issue for the government.
The authors of the paper warn US friends and partners, such as India, that allocating military resources to domestic law enforcement might impair America’s capacity to address global security issues, especially in strategically important areas.