October 2, 2026
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump signed an order Monday sending the National Guard into Memphis to combat crime.
With Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee visiting the Oval Office, Trump said troops would be deployed and join a special task force in the city comprised of officials from various federal agencies, including the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the U.S. Marshals Service.
He said the goal would be to stamp out crime in a way that he says sending in the National Guard and federalizing the local police force has in Washington.
“This task force will be a replica of our extraordinarily successful efforts here,” Trump said of D.C. “And, you’ll see it’s a lot of the same thing.”
The presidential memorandum Trump signed did not include details on when troops would be deployed or exactly what his promised surge in law enforcement efforts would look like. But it did specify that some out-of-state help might be available, including state police in Memphis-bordering Mississippi and Arkansas, and National Guard members from other states as necessary.
Trump said that the FBI had already stepped up its recent activities in Memphis, Tennessee's second-largest city, and had helped reduce crime, but "we’re sending in the big force now.”
Memphis has dealt with stubborn gun violence problems for years. In 2023, the city set a record with more than 390 homicides.
Tennessee’s governor embraced the troop deployment as part of a broader law enforcement surge in Memphis, with Lee saying Monday that he was "tired of crime holding the great city of Memphis back.” The state's Republican senators, Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty, joined in the Oval Office as well.
Trump's action followed his first announcing that he'd soon be deploying the National Guard to Memphis on Friday — drawing immediate pushback from its Democratic leader.
“I did not ask for the National Guard, and I don’t think it’s the way to drive down crime,” Mayor Paul Young told a news conference Friday while acknowledging the city remained high on too many “bad lists.”
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