President Donald Trump said on Monday that he was taking executive measures to establish a “Memphis Safe working group” aimed at carrying out a crime repression, leaving Tennessee City to stop for the potential arrival of the National Guard while the administration of Trump intensifies his efforts to suppress crime in the country’s major cities.
The decision to establish a “Memphis Safe working group” will reflect the effort to apply the law interrupted that the federal government has supervised in Washington, DC. Trump added that after Memphis, he planned to send a federal working group similar to Chicago.
“It is very important because of the crime that happens not only in Memphis, in many cities,” said Trump from the Oval office, where he was to sign a presidential memorandum creating the working group. “The working group will be a replica of our extraordinarily successful efforts here, and you will see that it is the same thing.”
Addressing CNN, mayor Paul Young said on Saturday that he was “not happy” that the National Guard potentially came to his city, but that he was looking for ways to invest in the fight against crime in the city.
The potential deployment is part of Trump’s wider effort to extend its anti-crime thrust at the national level and marks the first effort of this type in a republican state, at a time when the president was faced with an in-depth examination for his targeting of the cities led by Democrat.
The Republicans of Tennessee, including Governor Bill Lee, praised the announcement, Lee saying on Friday that he had been in contact with Trump to develop a plan to fight crime in the city.
Here is what we know so far about the potential deployment:
The announcement of deploying troops in Memphis comes after weeks of speculation that Chicago was the next city to be targeted by the Trump administration. But Trump’s plans were put aside earlier after the advisers warned it that sending troops to help with local law enforcement without the membership of the Governor of the State could create legal headaches they want to avoid, familiar sources with the case in CNN said.
Although he argued in private that he had the power to send the National Guard where he wants, Trump rather has the prospect of Memphis, where the Republican leaders of the State are ready to accept Federal Aid, the sources said.
Mayor Young said Trump’s television announcement on Fox News was the first final confirmation he had heard of plans to deploy the National Guard in his city.
Young told CNN that he learned that the idea was being studied when the Republican Governor’s office Bill Lee informed him earlier in the week. The Democratic mayor said that he had spoken with the Governor’s office for the possibility of obtaining more presence on the law enforcement by the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Weapons and Explosives.
While many elements of the operation are still being finalized, the first troops were to be deployed this week.
The MEMPHIS plans of the Trump administration will reflect their DC repression, including the formation of a working group with local police, sources said. Unlike the Blue States, the status of DC as a federal district allows the administration to more easily guarantee the cooperation of the Democratic mayor of the city.
Young told CNN that he expects more details this week, including the number of troops, their date of arrival and their functions. He suggested that the guard could help traffic control for major events, monitoring surveillance cameras or “embellishment” efforts in the neighborhood.
Last week, the young person informed the members of the municipal council and held a conference call with business leaders to prepare for the potential arrival of the goalkeeper, reported the affiliate of CNN Watn.
A White House official said that the president’s decision to deploy national guard troops in Memphis concerned crime.
“In 2024, Memphis had the highest violent crime rate, the highest real estate crime rate and the third highest murder rate in the United States (Trump) wants to make all cities in America again and it is great that local Memphis officials welcome his aid,” said the White House official.
Only a few days before Trump’s announcement, Memphis police had reported significant progress, with decreases in all categories of major crimes in the first eight months of 2025 compared to the same period in previous years. Global crime has reached a 25 -year -old hollow and murdering a six -year -old hollow, police said.
Local leaders urged the governor to reconsider the president’s pressure to send troops from the National Guard to the city. Lee Harris, the mayor of the county of Shelby – where Memphis – has qualified the deployment of threat to democracy and the members of the municipal council called to restore federal funding of the prevention of violence instead of a military presence.
The representative of the State Justin J. Pearson, whose district includes parts of Memphis and the county of Shelby, said on Monday: “There is no red carpet arranged” for the National Guard.
“A militarized occupation of our city is not a problem solving that we have,” said Pearson at a press conference by the Democratic Party of the County Shelby on Monday at the Memphis town hall.
“What we need is the eradication of poverty, not military occupation,” said Pearson. “So don’t provide the National Guard. Give us the resources we need for our people, for our city, for our county. ”
Young noted the national guard once was deployed in Memphis, in 1968 following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The National Guard was also in Memphis in 1978 after the MEMPHIS police and firefighters got on strike.
“We do not want to invoke these same images here,” Young told CNN, referring to the deployment of 1968.
Since the deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles in June and Washington, DC, last month, the Trump administration has threatened to send troops to several other cities led by Democrats like Baltimore and Portland.
Trump’s decision to assert federal control of the Washington police forces and deploy the national guard to patrol the capital marked an unprecedented decision and the one he said was necessary to combat crime. But criticism called him “seizure of dangerous power”.
Although crime has decreased in Washington, DC, under the federal emergency, it is not true that there is no “crime”, as Trump has often repeated.
The authority of the President on the National Guard and the DC police arises from the federal status of the city, but its power does not extend to the States.
Trump’s previous attempts to deploy the National Guard were faced with legal challenges. In June, he sent 2,000 California guard troops to Los Angeles against the will of Governor Gavin Newsom, citing demonstrations against aggressive immigration raids.
Newsom made the decision before the courts, where a federal judge judged that the deployment was illegal. The administration said it would appeal the decision.
Correction: a previous version of this story has misized the family name of the mayor of the county of Shelby, Lee Harris.
