By Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart
WASHINGTON, Dec 11 (Reuters) – The deployment of U.S. troops to cities around the United States has cost more than $340 million, a U.S. Senator said on Thursday, highlighting the expense of President Donald Trump’s use of the military in the Democratic-led cities.
Trump has deployed National Guard troops to Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Chicago, Oregon, and Memphis, Tennessee, though some of those deployments have been paused as they face legal challenges.
Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois said the deployments had so far cost $341.3 million, and that did not include the cost of the thousands of other troops deployed along the U.S. border with Mexico.
“These costs are tabulated in more than taxpayer dollars and cannot be overstated,” Duckworth, herself a combat veteran, said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.
Duckworth’s office said she had received the cost estimates from the Trump administration.
More than 2,000 National Guard troops have been in Washington D.C. since Trump’s initial deployment in August, part of the president’s contentious immigration and crime crackdown.
Rather than begin a wind-down, Trump, a Republican, ordered 500 more troops to Washington after the shooting of two members of the West Virginia National Guard, which officials described as a “targeted” attack. One of the two guard members died from her injuries.
Trump has also defended his move to deploy troops in Los Angeles, Chicago and Portland, Oregon, saying they are needed to combat what he describes as lawlessness and violent unrest over his immigration crackdown.
Democratic leaders of those cities and their states have sued to block the deployments, saying they amount to an attempt to punish political foes with militarized shows of force.
A federal judge in California on Wednesday ordered an end to Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles and directed that they be returned to the control of the state’s Democratic governor, finding that the president had exceeded his authority.
Trial courts around the country have ruled against the troop deployments. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to soon weigh in on the legality of Trump’s use of the National Guard in Chicago, a decision with repercussions for other cities.
(Reporting by Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
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