DHS wants National Guard to search for and transport unaccompanied migrant children
The Pentagon is also being asked by DHS to pay the full cost of deploying the 21,000 National Guard troops. That comes amid growing tension between the Pentagon and DHS over the cost of border and other immigrant-related operations.
The DHS request for National Guard troops comes as the Pentagon is already footing a $23-million-a-month bill to hold as many as 2,500 undocumented immigrants in a military facility in Texas. Defense officials say they are frustrated that the camp is holding far fewer than they were told to expect and they want a reprieve.
The Defense Department is in a contract with the Department of Homeland Security to help support DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, officers who are under pressure from Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller to arrest 3,000 undocumented immigrants each day.
But it has been slow going for ICE agents, resulting in fewer arrests of undocumented immigrants across the country. That has resulted in many empty beds at facilities like one in El Paso, owned and operated by the Defense Department.
Military officials say the facility has been holding an average of 150 undocumented immigrants each day over the last several weeks — a fraction of its 2,500 beds. On one recent day, they said, the facility housed fewer than 80 people.
Pentagon officials are asking to cut the number of beds in the facility from 2,500 to about 1,000, which they say would save $12 million per month. It is not clear if the DHS request for National Guard troops will increase the need for beds in the facility.
The DHS request also comes as the Pentagon is struggling to fund critical projects to support U.S. troops.
'Congress is aware that the department is redirecting funds from existing military construction projects like barracks improvements for lower enlisted personnel and longstanding infrastructure projects elsewhere in the world in favor of southwest border missions,' a Senate aide who spoke on condition of anonymity told NBC News.
'They are pretty frustrated with the way that the department is ordering them to support DHS out of their own pockets for a grossly disproportionate cost compared to what ICE facilities would cost the government,' added the aide, referring to military officials.
Last month, the Pentagon notified Congress that they plan to transfer more than $1.74 million in the current DOD budget to the southwest border mission, which will include taking money away from renovating barracks and base facilities.
Service member advocacy groups have criticized the move. Rob Evans, the founder of Hots&Cots, where services members can post reviews of barracks, dining facilities and other facilities, says he sees evidence daily of barracks with sewage leaks, mold, failing HVAC systems, and more.
'When funding is pulled from this line, troops pay the price in real ways: delayed repairs, worsening conditions, and a growing sense that their well-being comes second to optics and operations,' Evans said. 'Service members deserve clean, safe, and dignified living conditions. They've earned at least that much.'
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'The fact that my city and all the others called out by the president on Sunday, led by Black mayors, are all making historic progress on crime, but they're the ones getting called up – it tells you everything that you need to know,' Baltimore's mayor, Brandon Scott, said in a press call this week. The federal government can often partner with cities to address crime – several Democratic mayors noted that they worked with the Biden administration on this front successfully. But those partnerships are mutually agreed upon collaborations, not overrides of local policing. 'We're not anti-federal help. We're anti-federal chaos,' Frey said. Detroit's mayor, Mike Duggan, said in a statement that his city is seeing its lowest homicides, shootings and carjackings in more than 50 years, crediting a partnership with federal agencies and the US attorney as a major part of that success. 'This partnership is simple and effective: DPD does the policing and the feds have strongly increased support for federal prosecution,' Duggan said. 'We appreciate the partnership we have today and are aware of no reason either side would want to change it.' Mayors are not saying they have solved the issue of violent crime, Scott said, though they are acknowledging they have reduced it and will continue to work toward further reductions. 'We need folks that want to actually help us do that, versus try to take and show force and make us into something other than a representative democracy that we all are proud to call home,' he said. Mayors throughout the US made a clear distinction between Trump's authority in Washington DC compared to other cities. Washington has a legal provision in the Home Rule Act of 1973 that allows for a president to take over its police department during an emergency on a temporary basis, though Trump is the first to use this power. Other cities have no similar concept in law. Even with the Home Rule Act, Washington officials sued Trump after his attempt to replace the city's police chief, saying the president was mounting a 'hostile takeover' of DC police. Trump and the city agreed to scale back the federal takeover on Friday, keeping DC's police chief in place. 'We know when people want to say they're going to be a dictator on day one, they never voluntarily give up that aspiration on day two,' Norm Eisen, an attorney who frequently sues the Trump administration, said in a press call this week. 'That is what you are seeing in the streets of the District of Columbia.' In Minneapolis, Frey said the city has prepared operational plans with police, fire and emergency management and readied itself legally. 'Our chief of police and I are lockstep, and he reports up to the commissioner of safety, who reports up to me,' Frey said. 'There's no lack of clarity as to how this reporting structure works, and it certainly does not go to Donald Trump. Doing something like that in Minneapolis, it would be just a blatantly illegal usurpation of local control were this to happen here. Of course, we would take immediate action to get injunctive relief.' Trump's decision to send in national guard troops to Los Angeles is also legally questionable. Governors typically direct guard troops. The California governor, Gavin Newsom, sued Trump for using the military for domestic law enforcement in defiance of the Posse Comitatus Act. The case was heard by a judge this week. Harrell, of Seattle, said he is confident he will be able to protect his police department and the city's residents if Trump sends troops. 'What I have to do is make sure that the people under my jurisdiction as mayor feel confident in an ability to fight his overreach, and that our law department is well geared to advance our legal arguments,' he said. Scott, of Baltimore, said he was prepared to take every action 'legally and otherwise'. Still, there is some uncertaintyand unsteadiness about how cities can respond if Trump calls up the national guard. 'It's very difficult to know what our options are, because we're in unchartered territory here,' Smiley, of Providence, said. 'It's unprecedented and I don't know what my options are with respect to preventing troops from coming in, which is one of the reasons that I'm trying to be so proactive about making it clear that it's not necessary, it's not wanted.' This article was amended on 17 August 2025. An earlier version stated that tanks were present in Washington DC, when they were actually Humvees.
