On September 12, 2025, President Donald Trump ignited a fierce national debate by announcing his intent to deploy the National Guard to Memphis, Tennessee, in an effort to address what he called persistent crime concerns in the city. The move, which Trump described as necessary to "fix" a "deeply troubled" city, has drawn both praise and sharp criticism across the political spectrum, raising critical questions about the balance of federal and local authority, the use of military force in civilian settings, and the actual state of public safety in Memphis.
Speaking on Fox News, Trump claimed, “the mayor is happy and the governor is happy” about the pending deployment. He drew parallels to previous actions in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, where he also sent National Guard troops and surged federal law enforcement, often over the objections of local leaders. According to the Associated Press, Trump’s decision followed a conversation with Union Pacific CEO Jim Vena, who urged the president to address crime in Memphis—a city Vena knows well from his time on the board of FedEx.
Yet, the facts on the ground tell a more nuanced story. Data released by the Memphis Police Department just days before Trump’s announcement showed a significant drop in crime: every major crime category had decreased in the first eight months of 2025 compared to previous years. Overall crime hit a 25-year low, and the city recorded its lowest murder rate in six years. Despite these encouraging numbers, the city has struggled with gun violence and high-profile killings in recent years, including the 2021 murder of rapper Young Dolph and the 2022 kidnapping and killing of schoolteacher Eliza Fletcher.
Governor Bill Lee, a Republican, has found himself at the center of the controversy. Just two weeks before the announcement, Lee told reporters that Memphis crime had dropped by 15% in the last year and that he had no plans to deploy the National Guard. However, he reversed course, confirming on September 12 that he was in “constant communication” with the Trump administration about the deployment. "The next phase will include a comprehensive mission with the Tennessee National Guard, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Tennessee Highway Patrol, Memphis Police Department, and other law enforcement agencies, and we are working closely with the Trump Administration to determine the most effective role for each of these agencies to best serve Memphians," Lee said in a statement released Friday afternoon, as reported by the Tennessee Lookout. He added that he would speak with the president to "work out details of the mission."
Lee’s embrace of the plan stands in contrast to his earlier comments and to the reaction of Memphis’s Democratic leadership. Mayor Paul Young, who leads a majority-Black city, pushed back against Trump’s assertion that he was happy about the deployment. “I did not ask for the National Guard and I don’t think it’s the way to drive down crime,” Young told reporters, according to the Associated Press, though he acknowledged the city remained high on too many “bad lists.” Young expressed commitment to ensuring that any federal efforts would strengthen the community and build on recent progress, emphasizing the need to address the “root source of violent crime” through rehabilitation, mental health services, jobs, and housing.
Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris was even more direct in his opposition, calling the decision “disappointing and anti-Democratic.” He warned the Tennessee Lookout that the president’s move would “interfere and have a chilling effect on Tennesseans’ ability to exercise critical freedoms, such as the freedom to protest and the liberty to travel.” Harris pledged to do everything in his power to prevent what he called an “incursion.”
The local political divide is stark. While some Republican lawmakers, such as state Senator Brent Taylor and House Speaker Cameron Sexton, have welcomed the deployment as a tool to provide “administrative and logistical support” for law enforcement and to combat gang activity, Memphis’s Democratic legislators see it as a dangerous overreach. Senate Minority Leader Raumesh Akbari, D-Memphis, denounced the move as “an abuse of power, using troops to score political points off of crime statistics, even though overall crime in Memphis is down to a 25-year low.” Representative Jesse Chism, also a Memphis Democrat, warned, “Sending troops into Memphis now could rip the scab off of a wound that is just beginning to heal and only increases the possibility of unintended consequences.”
Legal experts and civil liberties advocates have also raised red flags. Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, said there was "no factual emergency to legitimate calling out troops to perform any kind of policing function." She warned that using soldiers for civil law enforcement “leaves our Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights — searches, seizures, due process safeguards — in the hands of people who are not trained to uphold them, and it can chill the exercise of our First Amendment rights.”
Questions about the legality of the deployment remain unresolved. Tennessee law allows the governor to deploy the National Guard in cases of “invasion, disaster, insurrection, riot, attack, or combination to oppose the enforcement of the law by force and violence,” but the deployment cannot exceed the extent of the emergency. Meanwhile, a federal appeals court recently ruled that Trump’s decision to take over the National Guard and send troops into Los Angeles without the California governor’s permission was illegal—a ruling the administration is currently appealing.
Despite the controversy, the governor emphasized that the National Guard would operate in tandem with ongoing efforts, including a major FBI operation that has already arrested hundreds of violent offenders. Lee pointed to $150 million in intervention grant funds and an expanded trooper presence as evidence of the state’s commitment to public safety. “As one of America’s world-class cities, Memphis remains on a path to greatness, and we are not going to let anything hold them back,” Lee said, as reported by WPLN News.
Notably, the last time the Tennessee National Guard was deployed to Memphis was in 1978, during a city firefighters' strike that resulted in more than 100 fires and a declared civil emergency. For many in Memphis, the current situation feels markedly different. “Memphis is not a war zone — it’s a city making progress,” Sen. London Lamar, D-Memphis, told WPLN News. She accused Trump of “choosing cheap political theater over the hard work of strengthening a community.”
Trump has hinted that Memphis may not be the last city to see troop deployments. He has openly mused about sending the National Guard to other majority-Black, Democratic-led cities such as New Orleans and Chicago, although local leaders in those cities have fiercely resisted his plans. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, for example, called Trump’s approach “disturbing,” accusing him of using the military as political props.
As Memphis awaits further details on the deployment—which is not expected to put "boots on the ground" for several weeks—the city stands at a crossroads. The debate over how best to keep its residents safe has become a flashpoint in the larger struggle over presidential power, states’ rights, and the future of law enforcement in America. For now, the only certainty is that all eyes will be on Memphis as the city—and the nation—wrestles with the consequences of this unprecedented move.
