Trump Orders the National Guard Into Memphis Under a New Federal Task Force

On September 15, 2025, Trump signed a presidential memorandum titled Restoring Law and Order in Memphis, creating a Memphis Safe Task Force to coordinate federal, state and local law enforcement in the city. It designates thirteen federal agencies and offices, including the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security and the Treasury, the FBI, the DEA, the U.S. Marshals Service and the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, and provides that the task force be led by an official chosen by the attorney general. It authorizes the defense secretary to request Tennessee National Guard units under 32 U.S.C. 502, with the deployment's size and duration set by Tennessee's governor. It cites the administration's earlier District of Columbia public-safety orders as models and points to FBI data showing Memphis had the highest per-capita violent crime rate in 2024.

The order extends a pattern of using military personnel and federal agents for ordinary policing in American cities. Because the Guard was requested under Title 32 with the governor's consent rather than federalized over a state's objection, the deployment sits on different legal footing than the Los Angeles operation a federal judge had found unlawful two weeks earlier, but it raises the same question about the durability of the line between soldiering and policing.

The task force stood up in the weeks that followed.