Trump is deploying the National Guard to Memphis. Experts worry it’s becoming normal

President Trump has set his sights on Memphis as the next city in need of federal intervention — including sending in National Guard troops — to combat crime.

In the Oval Office earlier this week, flanked by Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, Trump signed an order to set up a federal task force to send to the city, an effort he described as a “replica” of what he has done in Washington, D.C., where more than 2,000 National Guard troops have been stationed for more than a month. Those troops have mostly been patrolling federal property or beautifying city parks.

“It’s very important because of the crime that’s going on, not only in Memphis, in many cities,” Trump said Monday, noting that the task force would involve not only the state National Guard but also the FBI, immigration officials, U.S. Marshals and others.

The presidential memorandum did not include details on when troops would be deployed or what exactly any law enforcement efforts in the city would look like, but it did say that some out-of-state help might be called upon, including National Guard members from other states.

The deployment to Memphis is part of a broader push by Trump to expand what he has called anti-crime efforts around the country, with particular focus on targeting Democratic-led cities. It follows a pattern of Trump forcing, or threatening, federal intervention onto cities that legal experts say is testing the limits of presidential power and the use of military force.

“I have a whole bunch of concerns,” says Chris Mirasola, a national security law professor at the University of Houston Law Center. “I think fundamentally, there are deep problems with our politics becoming accustomed to the military having a recurring, consistent role in what are, frankly, non-emergency situations.”

It would be the first such effort in a Republican-led state — where Lee supports the move saying on Monday that he was “tired of crime holding the great city of Memphis back,” even as Memphis Mayor Paul Young, a Democrat, has expressed dismay.

“I did not ask for the National Guard, and I don’t think it’s the way to drive down crime,” Young told reporters at a news conference last week while acknowledging the city remained high on too many “bad lists.”

Support for, and opposition to, Trump’s plan for Memphis has fallen almost entirely along party lines among local leaders.

Why Memphis?

The White House has said that the deployment of troops to Memphis, which is majority Black, is to “restore public safety” as the city is “amid a longtime struggle with violent crime.”

Just days before the announcement, Memphis police reported decreases across every major crime category in the first months of 2025, compared with the same period in recent years. That decrease, however, comes after near-record-high crime levels in the city in 2023, including around 350 homicides and rampant gun violence.

Still, detractors say that the military is not what’s needed to combat crime rates in Memphis or other cities — and point out that National Guard troops are not trained in community policing or authorized to make arrests. And Memphis police are already involved in several joint state and federal task forces, with agencies like the FBI, U.S. Marshals and ICE.

Young told reporters last week he was committed to trying to work with the deployment, hoping to build trust in the community while continuing ongoing local law enforcement efforts.

“We don’t have a say in the National Guard, but our goal is to ensure that we have influence in how they engage in this community,” he said, while noting that federal officials should focus on the “root of violent crime” like access to mental health services, housing and educational programs.

Normalizing soldiers on the streets of U.S. cities

Trump has deployed National Guard troops to both Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. in recent months, and has indicated he might send troops to around a dozen other cities around the country — like Chicago or Portland, Ore. — all of which are led by Democrats. In every case he’s pointed to high crime rates in the cities as the reasoning, although data shows that violent crime in many of those places has decreased in recent years.

In the case of Los Angeles, California Gov. Gavin Newsom came out in strong opposition to the deployment, arguing that it undermined local authority and was against the law. Still, Trump seized federal control of the state guard — a highly unusual move — and deployed them, along with the Marines, to the streets to clamp down on protests against federal immigration raids. A federal judge in California recently ruled that the move was illegal, although that ruling only applies to California and Trump has already appealed it.

In D.C., where the National Guard has been deployed for more than a month, Trump has the authority to do so because of what’s called the Home Rule Act, which gives him command of D.C.’s national guard. But that doesn’t apply to other cities.

In Memphis, experts say Tennessee Gov. Lee’s support for Trump’s plan makes it more legally sound — but still unusual, and highly unprecedented.

“If the governor wants to invite troops from other states in — it may or may not be pointless — but legally speaking it’s not necessarily problematic, as long as they’re respecting people’s constitutional rights,” says Rosa Brooks, a Georgetown University law professor who served as a counselor to the undersecretary of defense for policy under President Barack Obama.

But Brooks says, beyond the legality, she worries that it will normalize the public to the idea of armed troops on city streets, something America’s founders were very much against.

“It continues to get Americans used to the idea that that’s a normal thing, and that as you go about your daily business, you should just get used to it, and that’s the way it’s going to be. And is that intimidating? Is that chilling to most ordinary people? It is to a lot of people,” Brooks says.

Pushing the boundaries of presidential power

It’s that normalization that has experts watching this pattern concerned.

“I think we’re seeing continued efforts by the president to expand his power and abuse it in that process,” says Hina Shamsi, director of the national security project with the American Civil Liberties Union.

She says she worries that using troops in this way challenges centuries of norms in the U.S. that limit the role of the military domestically.

“Very simply put, the military should not be policing civilians. There are laws and safeguards against that, and the president is undermining them in ways that are, I think, really harmful to checks and balances, as well as our civil rights and civil liberties,” Shamsi says.