Tennessee National Guard to mobilize in Memphis for anti-crime deployment
Tennessee National Guard units will mobilize in Memphis on Friday as President Donald Trump's administration turns to states' citizen-soldiers as an anti-crime measure in some of the nation's biggest cities.
The National Guard is deployed in three American states and the District of Columbia, while the federal government fights in court for deployments in Illinois and Oregon -- where the states' governors have protested the orders -- to be upheld as legal.
On Thursday, a judge in Chicago temporarily blocked the deployment of troops in Illinois.
The Tennessee Guard's mission in Memphis, however, was authorized by Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, who retains control over the Guard under Title 32.
The 150 Guardsmen will join a task force that includes 13 federal agencies, as well as state agencies and the Memphis Police Department.
In Trump's executive order creating the task force, the White House said Memphis in 2024 had the highest rate of violent crime per capita in the country, according to FBI data. Violent crime data for 2025 collected by the FBI is not yet available.
Memphis officials have made note of a steady drop in citywide crime over the past year, including a 16% year-over-year drop in crime, according to a crime dashboard updated by the city.
Memphis Police Chief CJ Davis said the Guard will not be patrolling neighborhoods or conducting traffic stops, but will support violent crime enforcement through existing federal partnerships, according to ABC News' Memphis affiliate.
The National Guardsmen will not make arrests or issue arrest warrants, according to the city dashboard.
Enforcing federal immigration law will be among the priorities of the task force, which includes the Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to Trump's executive order.
Memphis is home to the region's lone immigration court -- drawing people with a limbo status from all of Tennessee, Arkansas and parts of northern Mississippi.
Authorities have arrested people in increasing numbers at immigration courthouses since January, according to Colton Bane, the director of the Immigrant Justice Program at the Community Legal Center.
