Soldiers of the Georgia National Guard stand patrol at multiple locations near the border throughout Del Rio, Texas, on Feb. 10, 2025. U.S. Northern Command is working together with the Department of Homeland Security to augment U.S. Customs and Border Protection with additional military forces along the southern border. (Juan Michel/U.S. Army)
WASHINGTON — Two Democratic senators are demanding answers from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about the rising cost of the military’s immigration-related operations at the U.S.-Mexico border and Guantanamo Bay and their impact on troop readiness.
The Defense Department has sent about 2,000 Marines and soldiers to the southern border in the last month and operated more than 10 deportation flights to Guantanamo Bay and other destinations as part of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration. Guantanamo Bay is being prepped to hold up to 30,000 migrants.
“[The Defense Department’s] new immigration operations — which the Trump administration is planning at an unprecedented scale — threaten to burden the department’s resources and undermine our national security,” Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, wrote in a letter seeking answers from Hegseth.
The Pentagon has estimated its southern border operations will cost almost $1 billion in the next eight months and does not yet have a cost estimate for its new operations at Guantanamo, where the government pays contractors more than $272,000 per detention bed compared to $57,000 for a bed at a detention facility, according to the letter.
Adm. Alvin Holsey, commander of U.S. Southern Command, and Air Force Gen. Gregory Guillot, commander of U.S. Northern Command, described continually evolving plans with costs spread between multiple agencies and military services during an appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. They did not provide a cost estimate.
The involvement of the military’s C-17 plane in deportation flights is already proving costly for taxpayers, Warren and Hirono wrote.
The C-17 costs an estimated $28,000 per flight hour compared to $8,577 per flight hour for a civilian aircraft. The Pentagon has operated more than 10 flights to Guatemala, Ecuador, India and Guantanamo since Immigration and Customs Enforcement reversed its policy against using military planes to deport migrants.
“Much of this cost is avoidable,” the senators wrote.
Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, asks witnesses about defense readiness on Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025, during a Senate Committee on Armed Services meeting in Washington. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., is sitting to her left. (Eric Kayne/Stars and Stripes)
Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, asks a question during a committee hearing on Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)
Warren and Hirono also raised concerns about the potential toll of immigration operations on troop morale and training for war.
The 5,000 troops now stationed at the border, including 2,500 previously deployed National Guard members, have been tasked with hanging barbed wire along already existing border barriers, detection and monitoring, and vehicle maintenance.
About 500 Marines have been sent to Guantanamo and additional immigration-related deployments are expected to follow. The Trump administration is reportedly considering sending up to 10,000 troops to the southern border — double the number sent in 2019 and 2020 during Trump’s first term.
The Defense Department discontinued part of its border operations between 2018 and 2020 after finding a negative impact on military readiness and morale. Service members deployed to the southern border have complained of isolation, boredom, poor accommodations and an unclear mission, according to the letter.
The chief of the National Guard Bureau told senators last year that there was “no military training value” for service members at the border. Guillot acknowledged Thursday that most troops on border deployment were only getting about 20% of the training that they would normally get at their home station.
Warren and Hirono said they were worried the Pentagon’s deepening involvement in the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration work risked taking resources and time away from the military’s war-fighting mission.
“The Trump administration is militarizing the country’s immigration enforcement system in an apparent attempt to signal toughness,” they wrote. “But this political stunt will come at a high cost.”
