The ultimate length of the deployment is unspecified, leaving open the possibility that it could last for months or longer, driving costs into the tens or hundreds of millions by Homestead's estimate. Trump suggested that funding for his D.C. takeover — including rousting homeless camps, removing "all" the city's graffiti, and tending to "grasses" in the parks — would cost a "relatively small amount of money."

"Spending tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars to deploy the National Guard to the nation's capital, whether to address an imagined increase in violent crime or in support of immigration enforcement missions, is a massive distraction from the military's mission," said Gabe Murphy, a policy analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan budget watchdog advocating for an end to wasteful spending. "It undermines readiness, pulls resources and personnel from other missions, and dangerously blurs the lines between military and civilian jurisdictions."