Washington, D.C.- President Donald Trump said on Monday that he agreed to send the National Guard to Memphis, Tennessee, as part of a growing government campaign to fight what he calls “rampant crime” in towns run by Democrats. The president signed a “presidential memorandum to establish the Memphis Safe Task Force,” saying that the measure was “very important because of the crime that’s going on.”
There will be a lot of federal law enforcement and military resources on the task force, such as the National Guard, the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and officials from the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Marshals.
Trump said during the announcement that other cities might see similar deployments in the future. He remarked, “We’re probably going to do Chicago next,” naming another city that he says is having trouble with crime. He also said that his government was thinking about getting involved in St. Louis and New Orleans.
Bill Lee, the Republican governor of Tennessee, was at the White House with the president to support the move. Governor Lee said he was hopeful, saying, “We are very hopeful and excited about the prospect of moving that city forward.” I’ve been in office for seven years, and I’m sick of crime getting in the way of Memphis being a great city. Last year, Memphis had one of the highest murder rates of any U.S. city with at least 100,000 people, according to FBI data.
The deployment shows one of the main goals of Trump’s policy agenda: to employ the military and other agencies more to enforce domestic policies, such as stricter immigration laws. There have been legal objections to the legality of these kinds of actions. A U.S. district court judge recently said that sending the National Guard and Marines to the Los Angeles area in a similar way, against the wishes of Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, was against federal law.
Trump said that the participation of authorities in Democratic-controlled areas like Chicago “is not going to matter to us,” even though they were against it. He went on to say, “You know, who wants to help us?” The police don’t respect the governor at all. They don’t respect the mayor.
Trump has often said that his deployments have been successful since they have led to less crime. He said that the Memphis task force was like his work in Washington, D.C., which he dubbed a “replica” that was “extraordinarily successful.” However, figures from the Justice Department released in January showed that violent crime in the capital had already dropped to its lowest level in 30 years, before the federal government became involved.