Louisiana National Guard soldiers patrol the National Mall in support of Joint Task Force–District of Columbia in Washington on Sunday, Oct. 26, 2025. Senate Democrats have requested a formal probe into the cost of President Donald Trump’s deployment of the National Guard into several American cities, including Washington. (Joseph Barber/U.S. Army National Guard)
WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats have requested a formal probe into the cost of President Donald Trump’s deployment of the National Guard into several American cities for domestic security operations.
The request asks the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to analyze the costs of activating, deploying and compensating National Guard personnel who have been called to assist in immigration enforcement, guard federal property and personnel and support crime fighting.
“This extraordinary mobilization of military forces within the continental United States raises serious fiscal, legal, and constitutional concerns; and warrants close congressional scrutiny,” the 11 senators, led by Jeff Merkley of Oregon, wrote in a letter to Congressional Budget Office Director Phillip Swagel.
Merkley, the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, led a group of senators last month in asking the budget office to estimate the cost of giving the Department of Defense a secondary name of the Department of War.
The Trump administration’s decision in recent months to federalize the National Guard into cities such as Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., over the objections of governors and local leaders has provoked a flurry of lawsuits and sparked concerns among some lawmakers.
Trump most recently ordered the deployment of hundreds of National Guard troops to Chicago and Portland, Ore., and has mused about sending the military force into other Democrat-led cities, including Baltimore, New Orleans and San Francisco.
Critics have decried the deployments as departures from long-standing norms in which the National Guard is typically deployed by governors to respond to state-level emergencies while the president calls upon them to train or fight overseas.
Democratic senators said the “substantial cost implications” of the Trump administration’s National Guard deployments have not been publicly disclosed or formally justified to Congress.
In June, a Pentagon official told lawmakers that the cost estimate of the Los Angeles mission was $134 million but the costs of other missions have not been made public. Experts have calculated that the ongoing deployment of troops to Washington, which began in August, is costing $1 million per day.
“Congress must have a clear understanding of both the immediate and long-term budgetary consequences of this policy,” senators wrote. “A timely and comprehensive estimate from CBO will support fiscal accountability and help ensure that executive actions remain subject to appropriate legislative oversight.”
