President Donald Trump signed an order Monday sending the National Guard into Memphis to combat crime, offering another major test of the limits of presidential power by using military force in American cities.
With Republican Tennessee Governor Bill Lee visiting the Oval Office, Mr Trump said troops would be sent and join a special task force in the city comprised of officials from various federal agencies, including the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
He said the goal would be to stamp out crime in a way that he says sending in the National Guard and federalising the local police force has achieved in Washington.
“This task force will be a replica of our extraordinarily successful efforts here,” Mr Trump said. “And you’ll see it’s a lot of the same thing.”
Mr Trump has repeatedly claimed the National Guard in the US capital has led to an eradication of crime. That is not true, but numbers are down.
Mr Trump said that the FBI had already stepped up its recent activities in Memphis, which is majority black and Tennessee's second-largest city, and had helped reduce crime, but, “We’re sending in the big force now.”
Shortly before his announcement, the White House posted on social media that the Memphis total crime rate was higher than the national average and suggested that it had increased since last year, bucking national trends.
That is despite Memphis police recently reporting decreases across every major crime category in the first eight months of 2025, compared to the same period in previous years. Overall crime hit a 25-year low, while murder hit a six-year low, police said.
Still, Memphis has dealt with stubborn gun violence problems for years. In 2023, the city set a record with more than 390 homicides.
“I did not ask for the National Guard, and I don’t think it’s the way to drive down crime,” Memphis Mayor Paul Young told a news conference Friday while acknowledging the city remained high on too many “bad lists".
Mr Trump said he will probably send the National Guard in to Chicago, despite stiff local resistance.
