Updated on: September 15, 2025 / 5:41 PM EDT
/ CBS News
Washington — President Trump signed a presidential memorandum Monday mobilizing federal law enforcement agents to Memphis, Tennessee, as a part of a task force that will include the Tennessee National Guard, the latest planned Guard deployment in his effort to combat crime in U.S. cities.
“The effort will include the National Guard as well as the FBI, ATF, DEA, ICE, Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S, Marshals,” the president said Monday, adding that the task force will be a “replica” of the efforts in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Trump said he went ahead with the memo “at the request” of Tennessee’s Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who was in the Oval Office for the signing. Specifically, the memo directs the defense secretary to ask the governor to make the Tennessee National Guard available to help federal law enforcement.
“They’re a volunteer state,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Monday. “We’re not going to have any problems with the Tennessee National Guard.”
The move makes Memphis the third city to see National Guard troops on its streets under Mr. Trump’s presidency, following deployments in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., earlier this year.
“We’re going to be doing Chicago probably next,” the president said Monday, adding that “we’re going to wait a little while” before going into the country’s third-largest city.
The president said St. Louis may also be a city that will see a federal law enforcement presence.
“We have to save St. Louis. We have to save Chicago,” he said in the Oval Office on Monday.
Mr. Trump has said authorities will “straighten out” Memphis, which has one of the nation’s highest violent crime rates. The president said a person is four times more likely to be killed in Memphis than Mexico City.
On Sunday, the president wrote on Truth Social that federal law enforcement has been on the ground in Memphis for the last five months, but “the real work by us has barely begun.”
“The only reason crime is somewhat down in Memphis is because the FBI, and others in the Federal Government, at my direction, have been working there for 5 months – on the absolutely terrible Crime numbers,” he wrote. “Likewise, in Chicago and Los Angeles! But the real work by us has barely begun. That happens after we make the official announcement that WE’RE COMING, and when we do that, as we did in now VERY SAFE WASHINGTON, D.C., the no crime ‘miracle’ begins. ONLY I CAN SAVE THEM!!!”
While some governors have shunned the idea of the National Guard posting up in their cities, Lee has been open to the idea of the National Guard deploying in his state. Lee said he’s been in “constant communication” with the Trump administration for months on an anti-crime plan, and 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.”
Democratic Memphis Mayor Paul Young said in a press conference that he didn’t ask for the National Guard to come, but he’ll work with them to “strategize on how they engage in this community.”
The president’s decision to send more than 2,000 National Guard troops to the Los Angeles area this spring prompted an ongoing legal fight. A federal judge ruled earlier this month that the deployment violated a federal law that prohibits the use of the military for law enforcement actions on U.S. soil.
In Washington, hundreds of National Guard troops have been patrolling streets and cleaning up the city in “beautification” efforts since Mr. Trump ordered their deployment over the summer. The troops are not engaged in law enforcement functions, but their presence coincided with the president federalizing the local police force and surging federal agents into the capital to crack down on crime.
The president has floated other cities that could be the next target of his campaign against urban crime, including Chicago, New York and San Francisco. But he has also said he wants governors and residents of cities to support the presence of troops and law enforcement.
Illinois officials have made it clear they don’t want the National Guard there.
“We don’t need or want you here, Donald,” said Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson recently wrote in the New York Times that “[s]ending in the National Guard is the wrong solution to a real problem.”
Kathryn Watson is a politics reporter for CBS News Digital, based in Washington, D.C.
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