ABC News: Democratic senators want more details on costs and impact of border mission

After senior U.S. military officials told Congress they do not know yet how much the surge of active-duty military forces to the southern border with Mexico and the buildup of infrastructure to house thousands of migrants at Guantanamo might end up costing, two Democratic senators on Friday requested more details from the Pentagon.

Following a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Thursday with the commanders of U.S. Northern Command and U.S. Southern Command, Sens. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., sent a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth requesting specific details by Feb. 27 regarding the costs, impact on readiness and impact on morale that would result from the new missions along the border and at Guantanamo.

"We are concerned about the Department of Defense's (DoD) immigration-related operations at the southern border and at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay -- including the implications of these operations for the military's budget, readiness, and morale," the senators said in the lengthy letter requesting specific details from the Pentagon.

"DoD's support for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been expensive for American taxpayers, with some DoD expenses costing over three times more than when DHS performs the same function, while also posing "an unacceptable risk" to units' readiness," they wrote.

"In all, the Trump administration is militarizing the country's immigration enforcement system in an apparent attempt to signal toughness," they added. " But this political stunt will come at a high cost; it risks diverting DoD's resources away from its vital mission in ways that compromise our national security."

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