CBO: National Guard deployments cost half-billion dollars

Mark Satter, CQ-Roll Call on Jan 28, 2026

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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s controversial deployments of National Guard troops to six American cities since June cost about $496 million in 2025, and continuing the existing deployments as is would cost about $93 million per month, the Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday.

And for each additional Guard unit that is activated in the future, costs will increase by $18 million to $21 million per 1,000 soldiers, according to a CBO letter released Wednesday.

The estimates are the first concrete tally of the costs of the deployments that have sent troops to Los Angeles, Memphis, Portland, Chicago, New Orleans and Washington, and have inflamed critics, activists and watchdog groups.

Deployments to Washington, Memphis and New Orleans are ongoing.

Critics say the deployments have blurred the line between the military and law enforcement, and they have expressed concern that President Donald Trump could use the military to wield political power.

Trump has said that the deployments are necessary to quell violence in Democrat-controlled cities, tamp down crime and support operations to deport undocumented immigrants.

CBO did the study in response to an Oct. 27 request from Democratic Sens. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Ron Wyden of Oregon, Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Alex Padilla of California, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Andy Kim of New Jersey.

“The American people deserve to know how many hundreds of millions of their hard-earned dollars have been and are being wasted on Trump’s reckless and haphazard deployment of National Guard troops to Portland and cities across the country,” Merkley, the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, said in a press release. “Trump is weaponizing taxpayer funds to illegally tighten his authoritarian grip on our communities. It must end.”

“Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and the Trump administration have displayed gross incompetence by deploying out-of-control ICE and CBP agents in American cities. Our military should have no part in it. We need accountability and this administration must answer for wasting nearly half a billion taxpayer dollars,” said Warren, who serves on the Armed Services and Finance committees, in a separate release.

News reports indicate that some 2,400 Guard troops are to remain in Washington through the end of 2026.

The extension followed a November ambush-style shooting of two West Virginia National Guard members just blocks from the White House. One of the soldiers, 20-year-old Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, died from her wounds. The other, 24-year-old Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, survived the attack.

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