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President Donald Trump\u2019s<\/span> military occupations of U.S. cities have cost nearly half a billion dollars, according to an expert estimate provided exclusively to The Intercept.<\/p>\n The current $473 million price tag now includes $172 million spent in Los Angeles, where troops arrived in June<\/a>; almost $270 million for the occupation of Washington, D.C.<\/a>, which began in August; nearly $15 million for Portland<\/a>, Oregon, which was announced in September; and more than $3 million for Memphis, Tennessee, and almost $13 million for Chicago, which both began last month.<\/p>\n The National Priorities Project, a nonpartisan research group, tallied these totals from open-source information and costs-per-day estimates supplied to The Intercept by the office of Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.<\/p>\n The skyrocketing price of Trump\u2019s occupations come as the president threatens to deploy additional troops to more American cities to quell dissent and turn America into a full-blown police state. Trump recently said<\/a> he could \u201csend the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines \u2014 I could send anybody I wanted\u201d into urban America \u2014 while threatening to invoke the\u00a0Insurrection Act<\/a>, one of the executive branch\u2019s most potent, oldest, and rarely used emergency powers. He has specifically threatened to surge troops into Baltimore,\u00a0New York City,\u00a0Oakland,\u00a0St. Louis<\/a>, San Francisco, and\u00a0Seattle<\/a>\u00a0to put down supposed rebellions and to aid law enforcement agencies, despite\u00a0falling crime numbers\u00a0<\/a>and pushback by local officials.\u00a0Troops are also expected to be deployed to New Orleans <\/a>later this month.<\/p>\n Despite the Trump administration\u2019s unprecedented use of the military within the U.S., it has kept even basic details<\/a> about domestic troop deployments, including the costs<\/a>, secret.<\/p>\n \u201cOur National Guard troops did not sign up to police their own neighbors.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n \u201cIf Donald Trump is burning through hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on his authoritarian campaign of intimidation, the American people deserve to know about it. Federal judges across the country \u2014 including a Trump appointee \u2014 have ruled that these deployments are not justified, and thus not only wasteful, but also illegal and unconstitutional, and our National Guard troops did not sign up to police their own neighbors or be used as political pawns,\u201d Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., told The Intercept. \u201cTrump\u2019s continued abuse of our military to intimidate Americans in their own neighborhoods \u2014 the very same Americans he expects to foot the bill for these deployments \u2014 must end immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n Duckworth was one of 11 senators who asked<\/a> the Congressional Budget Office late last month to provide an independent assessment of the projected expense of deploying federalized National Guard units for \u201cdomestic security operations,\u201d including the activation, deployment, compensation and sustainment costs. The CBO did not say whether it will provide the requested assessment, telling The Intercept that it is \u201cunable to respond to external inquiries due to a lapse in appropriated funds.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the last six months, a Trump administration urban occupation playbook has emerged. In city after city, armed federal agents storm into neighborhoods, violating people\u2019s rights<\/a>. When American citizens exercise their First Amendment right to protest the authoritarian measures, federal agents respond with violence<\/a>. While such protests have remained overwhelmingly peaceful and have never overwhelmed the capacity of local law enforcement, Trump has repeatedly proclaimed himself unable to enforce the law and seized command of National Guard members over the objections of state governors to quash dissent.<\/p>\n A federal judge in Oregon on Friday evening\u00a0ruled\u00a0that Trump illegally ordered state National Guard units to Portland, issuing a sweeping injunction that restrains the president\u2019s claimed authority to deploy Guard members over a governor\u2019s objection.<\/p>\n In a 106-page opinion<\/a>, District Judge Karin Immergut ruled that\u00a0Trump\u2019s federalization<\/a>\u00a0of 200 Oregon National Guard members and deployments of federalized California and Texas Guard troops to an ICE facility in Portland exceeded his\u00a0statutory authority<\/a>\u00a0and violated the\u00a010th Amendment\u2019s protections for state sovereignty. \u201c[T]here was neither \u2018a rebellion or danger of a rebellion\u2019 nor was the President \u2018unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States\u2019 in Oregon when he ordered the federalization and deployment of the National Guard,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n A federal district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit have so far blocked Trump\u2019s attempt to federalize National Guard troops and deploy them into Chicago and surrounding counties. The Trump administration filed an emergency stay request last month with the Supreme Court and, on Monday, implored the justices to show \u201cextraordinary deference\u201d to the president as commander-in-chief, claiming Trump could have already deployed active-duty troops. \u201cThe standing military was undoubtedly an available option to quash the violent resistance to federal immigration enforcement,\u201d Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the court.<\/p>\n In September, District Judge Charles Breyer\u00a0ruled<\/a>\u00a0that the Trump administration\u2019s\u00a0ongoing Los Angeles occupation is illegal<\/a>, noting that while troops were deployed \u201costensibly to quell a rebellion,\u201d there was \u201cno rebellion, nor was civilian law enforcement unable to respond to the protests and enforce the law.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Members of the National Guard have been activated or deployed under\u00a0Title 10 authority<\/a>\u00a0or federal control in at least seven states \u2014 Arizona,\u00a0California<\/a>,\u00a0Florida<\/a>,\u00a0Illinois<\/a>, New Mexico,\u00a0Oregon<\/a>, and Texas \u2014 as occupation forces or to conduct anti-immigrant border operations. The\u00a0occupation of D.C.<\/a> is technically a Title 32 deployment \u2014 a federal-state hybrid \u2014 but since the capital has no governor, the D.C. National Guard\u2019s chain of command runs from its commanding general to the secretary of the Army, to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, to Trump.<\/p>\n At Trump\u2019s urging, military leaders have recently ordered the National Guard in every state to develop a \u201cquick reaction force\u201d \u2014 trained to combat civil disturbances and riots \u2014 that can be ready to deploy with just hours\u2019 notice. The units, in total, will reportedly number around 23,000 troops.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s extremely concerning, on so many levels, that in less than six months since Trump first activated troops in LA, domestic military occupations are escalating \u2014 despite their dubious legality \u2014 and expenses are already approaching half a billion dollars,\u201d said Hanna Homestead of the National Priorities Project, who provided the estimates on the deployment costs. \u201cEspecially given all the GOP\u2019s massive social spending cuts that are stripping health care and food benefits from millions of families, and the fact that the Pentagon is reportedly planning to ramp up use of National Guard troops for an impending nationwide crackdown.\u201d<\/p>\n Durbin\u2019s office provided The Intercept with data from the Senate Armed Services Committee that placed the price tag for the Los Angeles deployment at $170 million as of mid-October, as well as an estimate for the typical deployment cost for 500 National Guard member for a period of 60 days: approximately $323,333 per day, or $647 per soldier per day. The National Priorities Project used these figures and open-source information about the size and length of deployments to provide cost estimates through November 15.<\/p>\n For months, the Pentagon has refused to provide figures on the mounting expense of federal troop deployments. \u201cWe won\u2019t know the total cost until the mission concludes,\u201d a Pentagon spokesperson told The Intercept in July, when forces were only deployed to Los Angeles. Recent follow-up requests for further information have gone unanswered.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople don\u2019t need troops in their backyard \u2014 they need health care, housing, and cheaper groceries.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n \u201cWhy is the Trump administration refusing to be transparent about how much money it\u2019s spending on this political stunt?\u201d asked Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., another of the lawmakers who requested the CBO analysis. \u201cPeople don\u2019t need troops in their backyard \u2014 they need health care, housing, and cheaper groceries.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump has teased using urban occupations to hone the skills of the armed forces. \u201cWe should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military,\u201d he told a gathering<\/a> of hundreds of generals and admirals.<\/p>\n Trump has also justified his push to militarize urban America through hyperbole, dog-whistle politics and the peddling of baseless lies. Trump\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0protesters in Los Angeles were \u201canimals\u201d and \u201ca foreign enemy,\u201d calling the city\u00a0\u201ca trash heap\u201d with \u201centire neighborhoods under control\u201d of criminals. Trump described Chicago as a \u201cwar zone<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0He\u00a0similarly claims that Portland is\u00a0\u201cwar-ravaged<\/a>\u201d\u00a0and in a state of rebellion. \u201cPortland has been on fire for years. \u2026 I really think that\u2019s really criminal insurrection,\u201d Trump told reporters. He said<\/a> D.C.\u2019s homicide rate is higher than \u201cthe worst places on Earth.\u201d (Not only did Trump use older, misleading statistics, but even cherry-picking the data, at least\u00a049 other cities across the world<\/a>\u00a0had higher homicide rates.) He even fabricated a story of\u00a0hand-to-hand combat<\/a>\u00a0between troops and child gangsters from the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua\u00a0on the streets of the capital. For weeks, the White House has failed to respond to questions about this fictional incident.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n
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