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Dear John,
Our cities are no place for “boots on the ground.”
Trump’s occupation of Washington DC is set to go on at least through November [[link removed]] , and troops might hit the streets of other iconic American cities from Chicago [[link removed]] to Baltimore, and more.
In the midst of these deployments, Trump announced the rechristening of the Pentagon as the “Department of War” - and even went so far as to warn Chicagoans [[link removed]] that they might soon “find out why.”
It’s a bald authoritarian power grab.
It’s a threat to our immigrant neighbors and friends, who are being kidnapped from the streets.
And it’s a blatant abuse of our tax dollars.
In collaboration with The Intercept, NPP’s Hanna Homestead found that in both Washington DC [[link removed]] and Chicago [[link removed]] , the daily cost of deploying National Guard troops was more than $1 million per day [[link removed]] – and would be four times [[link removed]] the daily cost of public housing for every single unhoused person in either city.
In both cities, residents are fighting back. In D.C. this weekend, thousands marched [[link removed]] against the occupation. In Chicago [[link removed]] , others gathered to protest Trump’s promised occupation.
We deserve better. We deserve free, open cities, fair treatment for immigrants, housing for the unhoused, and investment in people and communities.
In solidarity,
Alliyah, Hanna and Lindsay
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TRADEOFF: DEPLOY TROOPS OR END HOMELESSNESS?
The National Guard has been on the streets of Washington DC for a month. The cost? About $1 million a day [[link removed]] , which is four times more than it would cost to operate public housing for every unhoused person in D.C. As we calculated for The Intercept, there are nearly 2,100 estimated troops , each National Guard member costing $530 per day.
And, as we found [[link removed]] , the six states with Republican governors that have expressed interest in sending troops to the nation's capital - Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Ohio, South Carolina, West Virginia - have 30,000 people unhoused in those states. The cost of just one day of D.C.’s military occupation could operate shelter for all 30,000.
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Photo courtesy of Virginia National Guard [[link removed]]
$1.6 MILLION A DAY TO SEND TROOPS TO CHICAGO
Despite a federal judge ruling Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to LA earlier this year was illegal [[link removed]] , President Trump is vowing to next send troops to Chicago [[link removed]] . If he follows through, the U.S. military occupation could cost almost $1.6 million per day , according to our original analysis published in The Intercept [[link removed]] . Like D.C., we found this expense to be four times greater than the daily cost of operating public housing for all unhoused people in Chicago.
Deploying troops instead of investing in what makes communities safe and prosperous is an attempt to co-opt public safety concerns, scapegoat struggling people, and advance a draconian agenda in service of billionaires and war profiteers. It’s no coincidence that these deployments come on the heels of the administration’s successful push to cut Medicaid and food stamps [[link removed]] .
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Photo courtesy of Action Aid USA / Brandon Wu
DEMILITARIZATION & CLIMATE JUSTICE: REFLECTIONS ON 2025 CLIMATE REPARATIONS CAMP
Divest in militarism, and invest in climate justice!
Last month, the second ever Climate Reparations Camp took place in New Orleans, Louisiana during the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. I joined five organizers and 24 other youth campers to discuss and learn tools to organize around global climate reparations. We learned about what the U.S. owes to the world for damages towards the climate crisis [[link removed]] and how frontline leaders, from New Orleans to around the world, have been fighting for healthy homes and communities for a long time.
Where can the U.S. get the $446 billion per year [[link removed]] of its climate fair share? We can look at the trillion-dollar Pentagon budget [[link removed]] , for example, and the Big Ugly Bill that boosts Pentagon funding by $150 billion and immigration enforcement by $170 billion [[link removed]] .
- Alliyah
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Photo Courtesy of Free DC on Bluesky [[link removed]]
“The children of D.C. deserve better than masked vigilantes roaming their streets with assault rifles. D.C.’s migrant population deserves better than coming home to find their family has been kidnapped by the same country that has sanctioned and destroyed their homeland…From D.C. to Palestine to Haiti, occupation is a crime.”
– Activist Afeni Evans’ speech [[link removed]] at the “We Are All D.C.” rally
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READ/ WATCH/ LISTEN
Trump’s Chicago Occupation Could Cost Four Times More Than Housing City Homeless [[link removed]]
Nick Turse, The Intercept
Price Tag for Trump’s D.C. Military Surge: At Least $1 Million a Day [[link removed]]
Nick Turse, The Intercept
Trump’s Invasion of D.C. Costs Over $1 Million a Day. What Could That Fund Instead? [[link removed]]
Hanna Homestead, OtherWords (syndicated)
Trump Promised an Antiwar Presidency. He's Delivered the Opposite [[link removed]]
Azadeh Shahshahani and Khury Petersen-Smith, Newsweek
Let’s Fund Real Public Safety, Not ICE [[link removed]]
Sonali Kolhatkar, OtherWords
'New Era of Climate Accountability': ICJ Says Nations Have Legal Duty to Combat Planetary Crisis [[link removed]]
Jake Johnson, Common Dreams
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