THERE ARE 35,000 TROUPS ON THE GROUND IN AMERICA DUE TO TRUMPS DEPLOYMENTS

A Federal Judge Found The Deployment To LA Violated Bedrock Constitutional Law, But Trump’s Domestic Military Campaign Continues.

-The Trump administration has deployed roughly 35,000 federal troops within the United States this year, according to exclusive figures provided to The Intercept by official military sources. That marks a 75 percent increase on the previous count offered by The Intercept in July.

These occupation forces, drawn from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and National Guard, have been operating under Title 10 authority, or federal control, in at least five states — Arizona, California, Florida, New Mexico, and Texas — in service of the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant agenda.

The true number of federal troops deployed may be markedly higher. When asked directly, Northern Command, which oversees military operations in North America, said it has no running tally of how many troops have operated under Title 10. The Office of the Secretary of War has, for weeks, dodged questions about the total number, refusing to say if they even know it themselves. The increase of 15,000 troops since July could reflect better accounting, as opposed to a marked spike in Title 10 deployments over the last two months, but it’s impossible to know for certain due to efforts by the Department of War to conceal basic information about the forces.

Trump “has forced 35,000 troops into a role they did not sign up for: intimidating their own communities.”

Experts say that the increasing use of military troops in the interior of America represents an extraordinary violation of Posse Comitatus, a bedrock 19th-century law banning the use of federal military forces to execute domestic law enforcement that is seen as fundamental to the democratic tradition in America. The deployments continue to nudge the United States closer to a genuine police state.

“The Trump administration has forced 35,000 troops into a role they did not sign up for: intimidating their own communities as pawns in Trump’s authoritarian power grab,” Sara Haghdoosti, the executive director of Win Without War, said. “The scale of the abuse of both our communities and troops who signed up to defend the Constitution and now are routinely being ordered to violate it is breathtaking.”

The financial expense may also be astronomical. These deployments could already have cost hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars. The actual number is unknown because the Pentagon is engaged in a coordinated cover-up of the costs.

“It’s impossible to know exactly how much the rapidly expanding police state is costing taxpayers,” Hanna Homestead of the National Priorities Project, a nonpartisan research group said. “The aptly renamed Department of War refuses to publicly disclose the total number of troops deployed on American streets, or the costs of the National Guard’s participation in the illegal, ineffective, and inhumane mass deportation agenda.”

Some of these National Guards members are part of President Donald Trump’s ongoing military occupation of Los Angeles. In June, Trump deployed troops to LA to put down protests against his administration’s immigration raids. The number of troops crested at around 5,500 but has since shrunk to around 300. In addition to the Guard members, Trump sent in 700 Marines, who were later replaced by a contingent of 400 additional Marines.

More than 10,000 troops are deploying or have already deployed to support the mission to secure the southern border, according to Northern Command, bolstering the approximately 2,500 service members who were already assisting Customs and Border Protection’s border security mission when Trump took office. Of these forces, around 8,500 or more have been active-duty troops from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines — operating under Title 10 authorities — according to a NORTHCOM spokesperson.

Around 1,200 members of the Marine Corps and Naval Reserve also provided clerical support at Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities earlier this year while serving under Title 10 status. In July, these troops were transferred to Title 32 status, according to chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell, meaning they reverted to the control of their state’s governor, although their duty is federally funded and regulated.

“Congress continues to provide a blank check to the military to make our streets look like war zones,” it has been reported. “There is not a single measure of wellbeing that has not declined in the U.S. over the last three decades as the Pentagon budget has increased.”

The White House has not respond to repeated requests for comment on the potential cost of domestic troop deployments running into the hundreds of millions or billions of dollars.