GAO Report on Military Personnel, More Complete Data Needed on Humanitarian Reassignments and Safety Transfers
The Government Accountability Office looked at how military services tracked humanitarian reassignments and safety transfers. The GAO found that military services varied in how they tracked these moves. Better tracking would help the services respond to trends and challenges in their processes.
Military Relocation Processes Reviewed
Humanitarian reassignments and safety transfers are exceptions to the standard relocation process. These transfers occur when service members meet specific criteria. Over 15,000 service members requested humanitarian reassignment from fiscal year 2022 through 2025. The Army and Marine Corps approved at least 95 percent of these requests each year. Navy and Air Force approval rates varied between 74 to 84 percent and 66 to 83 percent, respectively. Nearly 400 service members requested safety transfers during this time, and the military services approved 87 percent of those requests.
Why GAO Looked Into It
The Senate Report 119-39 included a provision for the GAO to review military service policies for reassignment due to compassionate, humanitarian, and safety reasons. The report assessed how the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the military services developed and implemented policies and procedures for these reassignments. The GAO also examined how these offices oversaw such requests and tracked data related to the requests and their outcomes. The review analyzed relevant military service policies and procedures and available data for fiscal year 2022 through 2025.
What GAO Recommends
GAO made 2 recommendations to Department of the Navy:
- The Secretary of the Navy should develop and implement a process to centrally track data on officer humanitarian reassignment requests and outcomes, such as by incorporating officer data into data tracked for enlisted personnel, to facilitate monitoring of such requests and to address any identified program challenges.
- The Secretary of the Navy should ensure that the Commandant of the Marine Corps defines what constitutes a safety-related relocation and develops and implements a process to centrally track associated data to facilitate monitoring of such requests and to address any identified program challenges.
The full report, Military Personnel: More Complete Data Needed on Humanitarian Reassignments and Safety Transfers, is on GAO’s site, publicly released Nov 13, 2026.