The deployment of National Guard troops and U.S. marines to Los Angeles will cost at least $134 million US and last at least the next 60 days, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and a senior defence official told lawmakers Tuesday.
“We stated very publicly that it’s 60 days because we want to ensure that those rioters, looters and thugs on the other side assaulting our police officers know that we’re not going anywhere,” Hegseth told members of the House appropriations defence subcommittee.
After questioning from members of Congress, Hegseth turned to his acting comptroller, Bryn Woollacott MacDonnell, who provided the total estimated cost and said this “is largely just the cost of travel, housing and food.” She said the money will come from operations and maintenance accounts.
U.S. President Donald Trump has sent over 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 active duty marines to quell the protests despite the objections of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and local leaders, including L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, who was due to provide an update about the protests early Tuesday afternoon.
“The governor of California has failed to protect his people, along with the mayor of Los Angeles, so President Trump has said he will protect our agents, and our Guard and Marines are proud to do it,” said Hegseth.
Newsom and Bass have said the federal response has escalated a situation that could have been kept under control by local police.
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Marine official says troops will protect buildings
Los Angeles police Chief Jim McDonnell said in a statement that he was confident in the police department’s ability to handle large-scale demonstrations and that the marines’ arrival without co-ordinating with the police department would present a “significant logistical and operational challenge.”
Marine Corps Gen. Eric Smith told a budget hearing on Capitol Hill that the battalion has not yet been sent to any protests. The marines are trained for crowd control but have no arrest authority and are there to protect government property and federal personnel, Smith said.
Requests for federal military deployment usually come at the request of a state governor, not in defiance of one. Newsom has said California will be suing the administration as a result.
Trump’s orders appear to be the first time it has happened without state approval since former U.S. president Lyndon Johnson deployed troops to Alabama in the mid-1960s.
Under the Posse Comitatus Act, troops are prohibited from policing U.S. citizens on American soil. Invoking the Insurrection Act, which allows troops to do that, is incredibly rare, and it’s not clear if Trump plans to do it.
“If there was an insurrection, I would certainly invoke it,” the president said Tuesday from the Oval Office.
Tensions soared in Los Angeles after a series of sweeps starting late last week, including in the city’s fashion district and at a Home Depot, pushed the tally of immigrant arrests in the city past 100. A prominent union leader was arrested while protesting and accused of impeding law enforcement.
In nearby San Diego, officers in heavy tactical gear fired flash-bang explosives at a popular Italian restaurant on May 30, an operation that resulted in four immigration arrests.
California is suing the U.S. president, accusing him of unlawful federal overreach by deploying the National Guard to Los Angeles protests over ICE immigration raids. The Pentagon also deployed about 700 U.S. Marines Monday to reinforce the federal response.
Questions about deportations
Hegseth said that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are deporting “illegal criminals,” but Democrats and immigration advocates have said it’s not clear if that’s always been the case, citing a lack of transparency from the Trump administration.
A Washington Post report on Tuesday indicated that some individuals from the Southern California raids may have already been deported. Judges in a number of cases across the country have questioned whether the administration has given deportees the opportunity to challenge their removals, and court orders have led to the government facilitating the return of at least two people to the U.S.
The U.S. has a significant issue with unauthorized persons within its borders, estimated at between 11 million and 12 million people by various immigration think-tanks.Trump’s White House spokesperson said in January the administration considers any unauthorized person in the country a “criminal,” even though illegal entry on its own is considered a civil offence.
Some lawmakers at the subcommittee hearing, from both parties, made it clear they are unhappy that Hegseth has not provided details on the administration’s first proposed defence budget, which Trump has said would total $1 trillion, a significant increase over the current spending level of more than $800 billion.
The Tuesday hearing was Hegseth’s first public appearance on Capitol Hill since he squeaked through his Senate confirmation with a tie-breaking vote from Vice-President JD Vance.
Many of the controversies of Hegseth’s early tenure were barely touched on, or not at all, though any number of those issues could come up at his planned appearance at the House’s armed service committee hearing Thursday.
These include plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on security upgrades to turn a Qatari jet into Air Force One, to pour as much as $45 million into a military parade planned for Saturday, and his use of an unsecured Signal messaging app about imminent military strikes targeting Houthi militants in Yemen, in which he appeared to reveal operational details.
The Pentagon’s watchdog is reviewing whether any of Hegseth’s aides were asked to delete any Signal messages.