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WASHINGTON — <\/span>The Trump administration’s high-profile deployment of federal troops to six U.S. cities<\/a> has cost taxpayers roughly $496 million through the end of December, and continued deployment could cost over $1 billion for the rest of the year, according to new data from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office<\/a>.<\/p>\n President Donald Trump has justified sending National Guard troops<\/a> into U.S. cities as part of an effort to combat crime and support local law enforcement. Critics of the move argue the deployments undermine state and local authority and exceed the president\u2019s authority under the Constitution.<\/p>\n The CBO published the new data estimating the costs associated with the federal deployments of National Guard and active-duty Marines after a request from Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., who is the ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee. <\/p>\n \u201cThe American people deserve to know how many hundreds of millions of their hard-earned dollars have been and are being wasted on Trump\u2019s reckless and haphazard deployment of National Guard troops to Portland and cities across the country,\u201d Merkley said in a statement about the CBO report. <\/p>\n Factored into the estimates are troop deployments to Chicago, Memphis, Portland, as well as Los Angeles<\/a> in June, when protesters took to the streets in response to a blitz of immigration arrests. The CBO said continued deployments to those cities would cost about $93 million per month. <\/p>\n The estimate excludes the military’s December deployment to New Orleans<\/a>.<\/p>\n For further possible deployments down the road, the CBO estimates deploying 1,000 National Guard personnel to a U.S. city in 2026 would cost $18 million to $21 million per month, depending on the local cost of living.<\/p>\n National Guard troops are expected to remain deployed<\/a> in Washington throughout 2026, according to a memo reviewed by The Associated Press earlier this month.<\/p>\n The troop deployments have provoked legal challenges from local leaders, and some have been successful. A California federal judge in January ruled that the Trump administration \u201cwillfully\u201d broke federal law by sending National Guard units<\/a> to the Los Angeles area. <\/p>\n A White House representative did not provide an immediate comment on the estimates.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n