$2B in Pentagon funds diverted to immigration operations, congressional Democrats say [View all]

Source: ABC News

December 11, 2025, 9:29 AM


A report prepared by Democratic members of Congress says the Pentagon has diverted at least $2 billion of its own funds to support the Trump administration's immigration operations, negatively impacting what they say is the U.S. military's readiness.

Separately, a response from Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to questions posed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., that was shared with ABC News disclosed that two major military exercises were canceled this year and a third was scaled back as a result of the deployment of military forces to immigration operations.

Caine said that both the "Vibrant Response" exercise scheduled for April and May, as well as a rotation by the 10th Mountain Division at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana, over the summer were canceled because of the deployment. The large-scale national "Ardent Sentry" exercise in March that U.S. Northern Command uses to train responses to chemical, radiological, biological and nuclear incidents was also "Descoped" according to Caine's response.

In a statement to ABC News about the report, the Pentagon said with a $1 trillion budget it's able to carry out multiple missions simultaneously. Compiled from open source information and reprogramming requests made by the Pentagon to Congress, the review of Pentagon border funding by Democrats in Congress found that $1.3 billion of that amount had been diverted to pay for the deployment of troops and resources to the Southwest border with Mexico.

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/US/2b-pentagon-funds-diverted-immigration-operations-congressional-democrats/story?id=128296261