The Brief

On the first day of his second term, President Donald Trump sat behind neat stacks of executive orders in the Oval Office and started signing. First, he pardoned the more than 1,500 “hostages,” as he called them, who’d been convicted or charged in connection with the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol. He went on to sign a slew of immigration-related orders, including one titled “Protecting The American People Against Invasion,” which called for a dramatic surge in border enforcement and, among other things, the dissolution of the Family Reunification Task Force.

The task force was born out of a federal settlement agreement, reached in 2023 between the Biden administration and the American Civil Liberties Union after a yearslong lawsuit, that required the government to reunite thousands of families who were forcibly separated during Trump’s first term. The separations were part of the Trump administration’s “Zero Tolerance” immigration policy, a crackdown on illegal border crossings in 2018. As reports emerged of weeping children being taken from their parents’ arms and languishing behind chain-link fences, the policy drew global condemnation for its inhumane treatment of people seeking asylum.

Asked by a reporter if he expected his new immigration orders to be challenged in the courts, Trump responded that he didn’t think they could be. “They’re very straight up,” he said.

Immigration and civil rights attorneys who work with separated families disagree, saying the sweeping changes will test the strength of the federal settlement agreement, which also banned most separations for eight years. Trump’s broad focus on total enforcement of all immigration laws, without specifying who exactly the orders apply to, has the ACLU and immigrant advocates on alert for anything that resembles a new family separation policy or undermines the settlement. And they’re spring-loaded to fight.

“We will be monitoring very closely to see whether the Trump administration faithfully applies the settlement,” said Lee Gelernt, the ACLU attorney who led the lawsuit. “And if they don't, we'll be back in court immediately.”

Nearly seven years after the Zero Tolerance policy, hundreds of children remain apart from their families. For the more than 3,000 families who have already been reunited and for thousands more making their way toward the border today, even a relatively minor or temporary policy change could jeopardize their claims for asylum.

“Basically, [the administration is] trying to shut down the border again to all asylum seekers,” said Laura Peña, director of the South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project (ProBAR). “And that is going to affect children. It is going to affect families.”

Here’s what to know about family separation under Trump, then and now.

A ‘shameful chapter’

To understand how so many families ended up separated, you have to go back to pre-Trump America. Unauthorized entry to the U.S. is illegal, but for decades, adults who crossed the border illegally with their children, many of whom were fleeing violence and persecution in their home countries, were generally not prosecuted for that infraction alone. Instead, families would either be allowed to stay in the U.S. pending immigration rulings or be deported together. But things changed after Trump took office in 2017.

That spring, the U.S. Border Patrol in El Paso, Texas, started toying with a new way to deter people from crossing the border illegally: prosecute every adult, including those crossing with kids. In April of 2018, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions took the policy border-wide, dubbing it “Zero Tolerance.”

“Having children does not give you immunity from arrest and prosecution,” Sessions later said of the policy.

When families were apprehended at the border, federal agents began sending children and their parents or guardians to separate holding facilities. A 14-year-old boy and his older sister, who had raised him, crossed the border into Texas, where they surrendered to the Border Patrol. “On the third day, they took me out of my cage and said I would be separated from my sister, but they didn’t tell me where I was going,” the boy later told a visitor from Human Rights Watch. “I don’t understand why they separated us. They didn’t give me a chance to say goodbye.”

Three months after the policy was formally implemented, the Trump administration began touting a dip in illegal border crossings but did not mention it was a small dip, and typical for that time of year. Meanwhile, border-area prosecutors complained that their dockets were overwhelmed by all the misdemeanor immigration cases and that people accused of serious crimes were slipping through the cracks.

But there was an even more problematic consequence of Zero Tolerance: the massive number of children who were suddenly in the care of the federal government. Children went to holding pens — many of them tents erected for the purpose — while they waited to be placed in shelters or foster homes. Over 40% of those detention centers were in California, Arizona and Texas. Humanitarian workers reported that federal authorities were not prepared to care for them, so older children took care of younger ones and illnesses went untreated.

Then, the government lost track of which children belonged to which parents.

Caseworkers and therapists asked traumatized kids who they came with, while immigration lawyers tried to calm hysterical parents who had no idea where authorities had taken their children. Many kids panicked, crying endlessly, or went catatonic. In one case, after Border Patrol agents forcibly removed a Honduran father’s 3-year-old son from his hands, the man became so agitated he had to be moved to a Texas jail, where he strangled himself to death.

The ACLU filed its class-action lawsuit on behalf of these families, Ms. L v. ICE, in February 2018.

In June of that year, under growing public pressure, Trump ordered an end to family separations without revoking Zero Tolerance. Separations slowed but didn’t stop. By the time Trump left office, well over 5,000 children had been taken from their families. While many had been reunited by then, some parents had been deported, leaving their children in the United States with other family members or in foster care.

In December 2023, the Biden administration settled the ACLU’s lawsuit by agreeing to aid in the reunification of separated families and to provide a pathway for their claims to asylum, including access to work permits, various forms of support and a three-year legal status called humanitarian parole.

Before approving the settlement, federal judge Dana Sabraw, of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California in San Diego, said family separation “represents one of the most shameful chapters in the history of our country.”

U.S. Border Patrol agents arrest migrants attempting to enter the United States in McAllen, Texas, in 2018.

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U.S. Customs and Border Protection

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Out of the frying pan

The ACLU’s Gelernt said there could be as many as 1,000 children still separated from their parents or guardians. Those families have been identified using the sparse records kept by the Trump administration during Zero Tolerance, which often yield little more than a name. The government and a coalition of nonprofit advocacy organizations have not been able to find them.

Lesly Tayes, an attorney in Guatemala, has been working to track down separated parents by combing through Guatemalan government records for information on their possible whereabouts. When she finds them, often in rural indigenous communities, she helps them travel to the Guatemalan capital to formally regain custody of their kids. But some parents Tayes worked with had never been to a city in their lives. “I had to support them with transportation or hotels,” she said. “Many of them didn't even speak Spanish.”

Parents who want to join their children in the U.S. and seek asylum often need help removing bureaucratic obstacles first; a sibling may need a passport for the journey or a legal guardian proof of their relationship with the child from whom they were separated.

Even after families are together again in the United States, their struggle is hardly over.

Alfonso Mercado, a psychologist in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, has spent the last several years conducting clinical research and consulting as an expert witness in family separation cases at the border. “There was trauma everywhere,” he said. “These children were experiencing difficulties integrating into an environment that abused them,” by which he meant the United States.

Joanna Dreby, a sociologist at the State University of New York at Albany who has studied the impact of immigration policies on families for the past two decades, said that even after separated families are reunited, parents and children can struggle to repair their relationships. In some cases, children who were separated when very young are reunited with parents they don’t remember.

“Kids might be like, ‘Why did they even go? Why did they do that? It led to this mess,’” Dreby said.

The Ms. L settlement agreement promises that, once reunified in the United States, families will be supported with mental health and other medical care, housing and legal assistance and the ability to apply for work permits. But advocates say these resources have fallen short of what’s needed.

“The increase in mental health services for this population is still very scarce and very limited,” Mercado said. “There's no continuity of care.”

And in the U.S., families face an avalanche of urgent problems. Tayes said parents and guardians often wait months to get authorization to work. “Some of them were struggling with food, housing. It wasn’t easy for them,” she said.

Hanging over these families is the specter of another deportation. According to the ACLU, the 2023 court settlement should supersede any immigration-related orders from the Trump administration. But the agreement doesn’t guarantee asylum, and the application process can be difficult to navigate, even with the help of an attorney. Non-governmental organizations serving Ms L. class members say they have struggled to provide pro bono legal help, especially after family separations were no longer a front-page issue and funding sources dried up.

The question of legal status can be complicated by the fact that members of separated families are often pursuing separate immigration cases. Children’s asylum claims, for example, were often filed after the initial separation, when the government designated them as “unaccompanied.”

“If [parents] lose their asylum cases,” Gelernt said, “then they're going to be in real trouble of being removed and/or re-separated from their children.”

Separations continue

In settling Ms. L, the federal government agreed to halt further family separation at the border through 2031, though there are exceptions that have allowed hundreds more separations since the settlement went into effect. For example, parents and children crossing the border illegally are still detained separately when the adults are deemed a national security or public safety risk, a danger to their children or if they’ve been charged with a felony other than crossing the border without authorization. However, the wording of the exceptions allows for broad interpretation. “You can basically run an 18-wheeler through them,” said one immigration law expert with knowledge of family separations.

Peña, whose organization ProBAR is a project of the American Bar Association, said cases in which border crossers are flagged for national security reasons are hard for attorneys like her to challenge because they often involve classified information. “The government can cite national security risk without revealing what information exactly is underlying that determination,” she said. “So it's hard to determine the source of the risk and advocate for family reunification.”

If a parent is flagged under one of the exceptions, they often go into federal immigration custody while their child goes to a shelter operated by the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Many parents are later released from custody if they successfully fight their case, but because the government has become legally responsible for their children’s welfare, strict guidelines kick in for releasing them into the care of someone else — even their parents. As a result, it can take much longer to reunite a family than to separate them.

The settlement agreement mandates that families who are separated be given written notice of the reason. Agencies have to facilitate communication between parents and children, and if parents are being deported, they must be given the option to be deported with or without their children. But Peña said this doesn’t always happen: “There are certain rights that the parents have under this settlement agreement that they're not going to know about if they don't have a lawyer who is also educated on these.”

The ACLU believes they should be notified if class members are picked up for removal, but Gelernt acknowledges the government may hold a different view. DHS did not respond to questions about how it will handle those encounters.

Gelernt said the ACLU is relying on organizations like Peña’s to report apparent patterns in immigration enforcement. Cases of parents being flagged under the exceptions could suddenly increase, for example, creating what, in effect, becomes a new separation policy. If that happens, Gelernt said, “We'd go back to court and say, it can't be that four out of five parents all of a sudden are abusing their children, or four out of every five parents are a public safety threat to the United States.”

He thinks the Trump administration knows better than to try to renegotiate or oppose the settlement agreement or to reestablish a formal separation policy. “I'd be surprised if they do forcible separation again, given the outcry against it,” he said. “But I've been wrong before about where they're willing to go.”

The next chapter

President Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office on Jan. 21, 2025.

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The White House

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Attorneys and immigrants’ rights advocates say it’s too early to tell how Trump’s spiking the task force, which has been a collaboration between the departments of Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, State, and Justice, will impact reunification efforts. The group’s main purpose in recent months has been to determine whether separated families were eligible for relief under the settlement agreement and to smooth the way for reunification.

The Ms. L settlement agreement remains in effect, Gelernt said, so even without a task force, the Trump administration will have to do something to meet its requirements.

The White House could not immediately be reached for comment as to whether the Trump administration intends to honor the court-ordered settlement. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which houses several federal agencies involved in immigration issues, did not respond to the same question by publication time.

NGOs working with separated families said that, so far, the government appears to be meeting its obligations under the settlement.

Earlier this month, the task force’s website was updated to reflect the new secretaries of Homeland Security and the State Department, Kristi Noem and Marco Rubio, and to remove references to the Biden-Harris administration.

The settlement agreement stipulates that the federal website where separated families can register for relief, Together.gov, has to stay up and that the registration process has to remain open until December 2026. Gelernt worries that potential class members may be afraid to come forward in the current enforcement climate but urges them to register: “Otherwise, they are very vulnerable.”

Even if the dismantling of the task force is only symbolic, Gelernt sees it as a tactic to erase Zero Tolerance from the collective consciousness. “That they immediately eliminated the task force highlights the Trump administration’s failure to admit there was such a policy, much less acknowledge the brutal abuse it inflicted on little children,” he said.

And even without a formal policy of family separation, sweeping changes to the bureaucracy — especially when they’re rushed — can get messy.

Peña worries that, as Trump’s orders take effect, there may not be clear guidance for immigration authorities on the ground. “Law enforcement agencies could really be looking at anybody who's not a citizen and trying to figure out, ‘OK, are they a priority or not?’” she said. “Because of the complexity, a lot of people who should not be on this priority list are going to get caught up in it. And that's where we're going to see mass family separations, potentially not just at the border, but across the nation.”

The ACLU believes they should be notified if class members are picked up for removal, but Gelernt acknowledges the government may hold a different view. DHS did not respond to questions about how it will handle those encounters.

Erika Pinheiro, executive director of Al Otro Lado, an organization that supports migrants on both the U.S. and Mexican sides of the border, said her office has been fielding calls from separated families asking how the new executive orders could affect them. “Unfortunately, we can tell them what we know, which isn't much at this point.”

Dreby, the sociologist, has observed that the mere threat of deportation and separation weighs heavily on immigrants, even those with legal status. “The ongoing anxiety is a really big deal,” she said, adding that cultural shifts can matter, as well as changes in policy. “When you have moments of really strong anti-immigrant rhetoric, the anxiety bubbles to the surface.”

Mercado put it more succinctly: “As a psychologist, I am very concerned about what's to come.”

In the meantime, Gelernt and other legal advocates are confident that the Ms. L settlement agreement, and their fight against Zero Tolerance during Trump’s first term, have prepared them for potential legal battles.

“By the time we understood that it was systematic, it had already been happening for months and months,” Gelernt said of the original wave of family separations. “This time, I think everyone's attuned to watching for it.”

Los Angeles City Councilmember Curren Price Jr. was ordered to stand trial on corruption charges Wednesday.

Superior Court Judge Shelly Torrealba made the decision after a six-day preliminary hearing where prosecutors presented a wide range of evidence against the 75-year-old Price, including documents showing he voted to support projects that benefitted his wife’s business.

Price faces 12 felony counts: five counts of grand theft by embezzlement of public funds, four counts of conflict of interest and three counts of perjury by declaration.

If convicted on all charges, he faces up to 11 years behind bars.

“I’m glad that we were able to put on the evidence and the judge heard it and we get to move forward,” said Deputy District Attorney Casey Higgins, who presented the case.

Price has pleaded not guilty.

“We’re obviously disappointed,” said Price defense attorney Michael Schafler. “We are going to continue to fight.”

Price declined to comment after the hearing.

Conflict of interest charges

Price, who represents a large swath of South L.A., is termed out of office at the end of the year. He is a veteran L.A. politician who has served in the state senate and assembly and on the Inglewood City Council.

The conflict of interest charges relate to Price’s failure to recuse himself on votes involving projects in which his wife benefitted, according to prosecutors. Delbra Price Richardson provides relocation services and community engagement on big projects.

During the hearing, prosecutors presented evidence that the city’s Housing Authority and LA Metro paid Price’s wife more than $800,000 at the same time Price voted to award the agency's multimillion-dollar contracts.

Prosecutors also presented evidence that Del Richardson & Associates, a company owned solely by Price’s wife, received payments totaling more than $150,000 between 2019 and 2021 from developers before he voted to approve their projects.

Former Price staffers testified about their system for flagging projects where there was a conflict of interest. But they conceded some projects slipped through the cracks.

Schafler said Price didn’t know about the conflicts at the time.

“There is no evidence Mr. Price knew of conflicts or that he acted with any wrongful intent,” the defense attorney said. “Prosecutors presented no evidence of Price's state of mind.”

He also noted the projects “overwhelmingly” passed the City Council and that Price’s vote made no difference.

Higgins, the deputy district attorney, argued it was ultimately Price’s responsibility to recuse himself from voting on projects involving his wife. The prosecutor told the judge Price tried to “create a wall around himself” with staffers who would give him “plausible deniability.”

The perjury charges relate to Price allegedly failing to include Richardson’s income on disclosure forms. Schafler said the statute of limitations had run out on the charge.

Price is also accused of embezzling approximately $33,800 in city funds from 2013-2017 to pay for medical benefits for Richardson, whom he falsely claimed was his wife while still legally married to Lynn Suzette Price.

“He's nickel and diming the government at every turn,” Higgins told the court.

“Your honor, this is not the kind of case with strippers and hookers and bags of cash and cocaine,” he said. “It's a long secret corruption.”

Statement from Price’s office

After the judge’s decision, Price’s spokesperson Angelina Valencia-Dumarot issued a statement.

“The testimony presented during the hearing, including from key witnesses, clearly shows that Councilman Price did not act with any intent to do wrong and that the case rests on speculation rather than facts. While the court’s ruling is disappointing, the Councilmember remains fully committed to fighting these charges, clearing his name, and is confident the truth will ultimately prevail.”

No trial date has been set. The next court date is March 13.

As a series of winter storms barreled toward Southern California around the start of the new year, the 211 LA hotline prepared to hand out motel vouchers and reserve shelter beds for people seeking refuge from wet weather.

The hotline received more than 12,700 calls for assistance between Dec. 22 and Jan. 6, when the Emergency Response Program was activated in response to the severe weather.

But it had only 140 motel vouchers to distribute — 50 from the city of Los Angeles and 90 from the county. All vouchers were handed out within a day, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, known as LAHSA, which helps distribute funding.

Only one shelter in the program, in Long Beach, was open at that time and it was full during the two-week activation period, according to LAHSA. Another winter shelter program offers 335 beds but was mostly full at the time, officials said.

The situation highlights long-running challenges 211 LA has faced during weather emergencies, including inadequate staff and long wait times. Officials say hotline callers are often frustrated when they find out that so few resources are available.

“A lot of the responses that we get from callers is anger … about not being able to provide them with that resource that they were told they can call us for,” Nancy Dueñez Velazquez, 211 LA’s housing director, told LAist.

She noted that when city and county officials encourage people to call 211 LA for shelter during a storm, they often don’t make clear that resources are "extremely limited.”

County supervisors say they’re working to address 211’s challenges, but there are budget constraints. The county is considering major cuts to homeless services and programs in the next budget year as it faces increased costs and funding losses.

Other county officials say they’re working to improve messaging around 211 and are shifting more funding through LAHSA to boost staffing.

Supervisor Janice Hahn told LAist she wants the county to look into providing more shelter beds during storms.

“In an emergency when lives are on the line, we have to be able to do better,” Hahn said.

LAist reached out to several authorities in the city of L.A., including Mayor Karen Bass, but none responded by the time of publication.

Thousands of calls; limited resources

Southern California experienced historic rainfall in late December — Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were the wettest on record — followed by more rain in early January.

During that time, the 211 hotline received 12,784 calls for assistance, Dueñez Velazquez said. But it didn’t have enough staff to handle them all.

The hotline had funding for 17 agents, working around the clock, who were able to field about three quarters of those calls. The rest disconnected before reaching an agent. Ideally, the hotline needs nearly 60 agents to handle the call load, according to 211 LA estimates.

Officials said they can boost staffing during emergencies by paying staff overtime. During the recent storms, 211 LA added about 58 hours of overtime, officials said.

Fewer staff can mean people wait longer to get connected to an agent for assistance. The average wait time for people calling during the storms was a little under eight minutes.

The longest wait time happened on Dec. 23, a day before Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in L.A. and five other counties because of the weather. Some 211 callers waited two hours to reach an agent.

Long wait times are not new to 211. In February 2024, as an atmospheric river was pummeling the region, LAist called the hotline and waited three hours and 30 minutes before reaching an agent. That was a little longer than the average wait for most callers that day, officials said at the time.

Officials from 211 LA have communicated those challenges in multiple after-action reports, most recently in June 2025. The reports highlight strained capacity, extensive wait times, frustrated callers and delayed funding.

Dueñez Velazquez said 211 LA has the ability to respond quickly to emergency events and assist people in need, it just needs the resources and budget to support the work. On a typical day, the hotline is “able to handle the call volume,” she said, but callers’ needs fluctuate with the weather.

Resources can run out quickly, so 211 LA provides whatever assistance is available at the time of the call, Dueñez Velazquez said.

“Whether that's a motel voucher, whether that's placement in a winter shelter site or whether that's information and referral to the next possible best resource that we can connect you to,” she said. “We really are here to help.”

She added that 211 LA updates its website with information about the number of available motel vouchers so callers with access to the site can decide whether to stay on the line.

LAHSA officials said the agency's goal is to serve as many unhoused people as possible each winter, and they’re proud to have “maximized resources” during the latest emergency.

“We would welcome additional resources, but we understand there are several competing priorities,” Ahmad Chapman, LAHSA’s director of communications, told LAist.

County officials respond

L.A. County officials say they’re working to fix some of the problems facing 211.

Supervisor Hilda Solis, chair of the Board of Supervisors, told LAist her office is improving public messaging so people calling 211 get the most up-to-date information on how many vouchers and other emergency resources are available.

“Extreme weather events highlight both the importance and the limits of motel vouchers,” Solis said. “While they are an essential emergency tool during storms, they are resource-intensive and difficult to scale quickly enough to meet the full level of need.”

Measure A, a half-cent sales tax increase passed by voters in 2024, directs funding to 211 LA to help ramp up capacity during the winter shelter season, Solis said. Cities can use their Measure A dollars to help add emergency shelters beds and motel vouchers to the overall inventory.

Supervisor Kathryn Barger told LAist the county’s new Department of Homeless Services and Housing is focused on making the most of limited resources while working with LAHSA on outreach.

“While emergency shelters are one critical tool, they are not the only option — motel vouchers and other interventions are also part of the County’s response — but all of this is constrained by fiscal realities,” Barger said. “That’s why we continue to look for ways to better coordinate, communicate, and stretch resources as effectively as possible.”

Officials with the Department of Homeless Services and Housing told LAist that more emergency shelter units were available during the winter storms, nearly half of which were allocated to 211 LA.

The department said in a statement to LAist it connects with people experiencing homelessness to make sure they’re aware of incoming storms, moves them out of areas prone to flooding and provides temporary shelter for as many as possible. Outreach teams also have their own motel vouchers to hand out, according to officials, in addition to 211 LA.

“[The department] has taken steps to support 211 in addressing an influx of callers seeking support during inclement weather, including shifting funding through LAHSA to pay for around-the-clock staffing to meet urgent needs,” the statement read.

Officials with the city of L.A. have expressed concerns about the region's storm response in the past.

Councilmember Nithya Raman has said previously that her office struggled to get people seeking shelter into temporary rooms during winter storms in 2024, and that there needed to be better lines of communication between LAHSA, 211 and the city.

Raman, chair of the Housing and Homelessness Committee, and Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, vice-chair of the committee, didn’t respond to LAist’s questions about the recent storm response.

Mayor Karen Bass’ office did not respond to LAist’s request for comment.

On Wednesday, Bruce Springsteen released a protest song condemning the violence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis. The song memorializes the lives of Renee Macklin Good and Alex Pretti, who were fatally shot by federal agents this month.

"I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis," The Boss wrote on social media. "It's dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Stay free."

"Streets of Minneapolis" is a full-band rock and roll song, complete with an E Street Choir singalong. Springsteen's raw and raspy voice is full of indignation as he calls out "King Trump" and his "federal thugs," and promises to remember the events unfolding in the streets of Minneapolis this winter. The verses narrate the killings of Good and Pretti respectively, and underline how eyewitness videos of their deaths contradict government officials' statements.

"Their claim was self defense, sir / Just don't believe your eyes," Springsteen sings. "It's our blood and bones / And these whistles and phones / Against [Stephen] Miller and [Kristi] Noem's dirty lies."

Following the shooting of 37-year-old nurse Alex Pretti on Saturday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem referred to Pretti's actions as "domestic terrorism," saying he "brandished" a gun and "attacked" officers. Noem used similar language to describe Renee Macklin Good's behavior shortly before she was shot by an officer. A preliminary government review of Pretti's case diverts from Noem's initial statements, instead claiming that Pretti resisted arrest before being shot by two Customs and Border Protection officers.

The release of "Streets of Minneapolis" follows public comments made by Springsteen regarding the ongoing protests. During an appearance at the Light of Day festival in New Jersey earlier this month, he dedicated his performance of "The Promised Land" to Renee Macklin Good, and echoed sentiments expressed by Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey that "ICE should get the f*** out of Minneapolis."

Springsteen, who has written politically-driven music for decades, has heavily criticized President Trump's policies since he was first elected to office in 2016. Last spring, he released the live EP Land of Hope & Dreams, which included on-stage comments from a show in England calling out the "corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous administration."

Copyright 2026 NPR

President Donald Trump's unprecedented use of the National Guard could cost $1.1 billion this year if domestic deployments remain in place, according to data released by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

During his second term, Trump sent troops to six Democratic-led cities in an effort to suppress protests, tackle crime or protect federal buildings and personnel. Half of those mobilizations ended this month, namely in Los Angeles, Chicago and Portland, Ore. But the continued military presence in Washington, D.C., Memphis and New Orleans, along with 200 members of the Texas National Guard still on standby, is expected to carry a steep cost.

On Wednesday, the CBO said that at current levels, these deployments will require an additional $93 million per month. The operation in D.C. alone, which currently includes over 2,690 Guard members, is projected to reach upwards of $660 million this year if it runs through December as expected by the CBO.

The CBO's findings were issued in response to 11 U.S. senators — led by Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon — who, back in October, urged the budget office to conduct an independent probe into deployment costs.

"It's a massive use of national treasure that should be going into healthcare, housing and education," Merkley told NPR on Wednesday.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

For months, the Trump administration has offered little information about the price tag associated with the Guard operations. The CBO's findings on Wednesday come as Trump's use of National Guard troops has already faced legal scrutiny in the courts and sparked serious conversations about soldiers' morale.

In 2025, $496 million spent on domestic deployments 

Trump first deployed the Guard in June to Los Angeles in response to protests over immigration raids. In the months that followed, the president ordered troops to D.C. and Memphis, arguing that they were needed to crack down on crime. Guard forces were also mobilized to Chicago and Portland, Ore., after the administration said they were needed to protect federal buildings and personnel, though they were blocked by federal courts from conducting operations. Most recently, at the end of December, troops arrived in New Orleans after Republican Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry requested federal assistance to improve public safety.

According to the CBO, these mobilizations cost about $496 million in 2025. That total includes:

• $193 million in Los Angeles 
• $223 million in D.C.
• $33 million in Memphis
• $26 million in Portland, Ore.
• $21 million in Chicago

The cost for a single service member — which includes pay, health care, lodging, food and transportation — ranges from $311 to $607 per day, the budget office said.

At large, the nation's defense budget will surpass $1 trillion for the first time in U.S. history as a result of Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act. But Gabe Murphy, a policy analyst from the nonpartisan budget watchdog Taxpayers for Common Sense, said the deployments' multimillion-dollar price tag shouldn't be overlooked.

" No one wants to see their tax dollars wasted," he said.

Murphy argued that using federalized Guard members to tackle crime, like in D.C. and Memphis, is not cost-effective since they are not allowed to conduct actual law enforcement duties, such as performing arrests or searches. He added that deploying the Guard is not a long-term solution to reducing crime.

"It would be far more cost effective to invest in local law enforcement," he said.

Trump has repeatedly defended the use of troops, asserting that cities with a Guard presence have become safer.

"Can't imagine why governors wouldn't want us to help," Trump said at a press conference on Jan. 3.

If Trump orders more deployments, it could cost up to $21 million per 1,000 soldiers

Earlier this month, the Trump administration withdrew the Guard from California, Oregon and Illinois after the Supreme Court refused to allow troops into Chicago, at least for the time being.

Despite the setback, Trump has continued to suggest using military force domestically. Most recently, he threatened to activate troops via the Insurrection Act to quell protests in Minneapolis following the shooting of Renee Macklin Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.

To support additional Guard deployments, the CBO estimates that it could cost between $18 million and $21 million for every additional 1,000 soldiers.

Lindsay Koshgarian, the program director of the National Priorities Project who has been tracking deployment costs, worries that at some point, these expenses will affect funding for other important military priorities. The NPP is a research group within the progressive think tank, the Institute for Policy Studies.

A cautionary tale comes from 2021. After some 25,000 Guard forces were sent to D.C. in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the Army National Guard warned that the money used for that deployment had diverted funds away from military training and readiness. Congress later approved $521 million to reimburse the Guard.

"At some point, this is going to either take away from other things that people want and need or it's probably going to have to be funded with additional money," she said.
Copyright 2026 NPR