Pentagon budget used to advance Trump’s anti-immigration policies

A report prepared by Democratic members of Congress shows that the Pentagon has diverted at least $2 billion of its funds to support President Donald Trump’s immigration operations—moves they say negatively impact the readiness of the U.S. military.

A response from Gen. Dan Keane, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to questions posed by Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren revealed that two major military exercises planned for this year were canceled, and the budget for another exercise was cut due to the deployment of troops for immigration-related missions.

Keane stated that both exercises scheduled for April and May, as well as a rotation involving the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division at the Joint Readiness Training Center in Fort Polk, Louisiana, were canceled over the summer because of troop deployments.

A review of the Pentagon’s border-related spending—compiled by Democrats using open-source information and the Pentagon’s requests to Congress for funding reprogramming—shows that $1.3 billion of this amount was allocated to cover the costs of deploying personnel and resources to the southwest border with Mexico.

The report also cited a request the Pentagon submitted to Congress in late May to reprogram $200 million in previously approved military construction funds in order to build a 9-meter-high steel barrier along a 20-mile stretch of the border near Yuma, Arizona.

The deployment of active-duty troops to the southwest border to crack down on migrants began in January, shortly after the start of Donald Trump’s second term, with more than 7,000 troops assigned to support federal immigration agencies operating along the border.

Since April, the U.S. government has designated large sections of the border as military zones, where American forces are authorized to detain any migrant crossing through areas that now fall under the jurisdiction of military bases.