National Guard in Memphis: Authority, Lawsuits, and Crime Data

The National Guard in Memphis has been operating under the Memphis Safe Task Force since September 2025, a federal-state operation ordered by President Donald Trump and carried out with the active support of Tennessee Governor Bill Lee. The force grew from a few hundred troops in the fall to roughly 1,450 Guard members by February 2026 and has continued past the point when similar deployments in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland were rescinded. The deployment survived a state court challenge on standing grounds, and no end date has been announced.¹

How the Deployment Was Authorized

On September 15, 2025, President Trump signed a memorandum titled “Restoring Law and Order in Memphis,” citing FBI data showing Memphis had the highest per-capita rate of violent crime in the country in 2024.² The memorandum created the Memphis Safe Task Force, chaired by an appointee of the Attorney General and led operationally by the U.S. Marshals Service.³ It combined personnel from the FBI, DEA, ATF, ICE, Homeland Security Investigations, the U.S. Marshals, and other federal agencies with the Tennessee National Guard and about 300 Tennessee Highway Patrol troopers.⁴

The Guard component operates under 32 U.S.C. § 502, known as Title 32. That framework keeps Guard members under the command of Tennessee’s governor rather than the federal government, while the federal government funds the deployment. The Insurrection Act was not invoked.²

Governor Lee developed what his office called a “multi-phased, strategic plan” with the Trump administration and formally requested activation under Title 32.⁵ He called the partnership a “generational opportunity” to curb crime in the city.⁴ Local government was not aligned with him. The Memphis City Council passed a resolution urging Lee to reject the deployment, citing MPD data showing crime at a 25-year low and warning that militarizing law enforcement would “blur the line” between military and civilian policing.⁶ Mayor Paul Young said publicly that he had not requested the federal presence but would work to use whatever resources arrived.⁷

What Guard Members Do on the Ground

Guard members in Memphis serve in a support role, not a frontline policing role. They function as “extra eyes and ears” for local and federal law enforcement, assist with community beautification such as litter pickup and graffiti removal, and support enforcement of quality-of-life violations like public intoxication and noise offenses.⁸ They are not authorized to make arrests or issue warrants.⁹

Guard members remain unarmed unless local law enforcement specifically requests otherwise. They wear standard uniforms without masks, and no armored vehicles are used.⁸ Troop numbers have climbed steadily. Between 140 and 180 troops were on patrol in November 2025. That grew to about 370 by early January 2026,¹⁰ and to roughly 1,450 by February 2026.¹ During the fall, a discrepancy emerged in the reported count: Memphis police reported roughly 200 Guard members in the city while court filings indicated more than 700.¹¹

The Lawsuit Over the Governor’s Authority

The central legal question is whether Governor Lee had the power under Tennessee law to activate the Guard. In October 2025, a coalition filed suit in Davidson County Chancery Court. The plaintiffs included Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris, Memphis City Councilmember JB Smiley Jr., two Shelby County commissioners, and three Democratic state legislators, represented by Democracy Forward and the National Immigration Law Center.¹² They argued that Tennessee’s constitution and statutes limit the governor’s power to activate the Guard to situations involving rebellion, invasion, or extreme emergency, and that none of those conditions existed. The Tennessee legislature never voted on the deployment, and neither Memphis nor Shelby County had requested it.¹³

On November 17, 2025, Chancellor Patricia Head Moskal issued a temporary injunction blocking the deployment. She ruled the governor had “exceeded his authority,” writing that “the power committed to the Governor as commander-in-chief of the Army and Militia is not unfettered.”¹⁴ Moskal noted that Lee had never issued a formal order and had relied on a press release following the presidential memorandum, and that the deployment failed to meet statutory requirements because there had been no “grave emergency” or “disaster” and no request from local officials. Two days later, on November 19, she lifted her own order after the state filed an appeal, letting the Guard remain while the case proceeded.¹¹

A three-judge panel of the Tennessee Court of Appeals heard oral arguments on March 5, 2026. Solicitor General Matt Rice argued for the state that the chancellor had erred in granting standing to local officials and in overriding the governor’s authority as commander-in-chief to respond to a “grave emergency,” and that the governor enjoyed sovereign immunity from the suit. The plaintiffs countered that the deployment was “illegal twice over,” exceeding statutory authorization for routine law enforcement and violating constitutional restrictions that limit the militia to situations of rebellion or invasion.¹⁵

On April 28, 2026, the Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s injunction. In an opinion authored by Judge Andy D. Bennett, the panel ruled that the plaintiffs lacked standing. Legislative plaintiffs had failed to show a “concrete injury in fact,” their grievances being diffuse institutional concerns shared by all members of their legislative bodies. The court held that Mayor Harris had not demonstrated a cognizable injury either, and that the plaintiffs had not met the requirements for taxpayer standing, partly because the deployment was federally funded under Title 32.¹⁶ Because the case was decided on standing, the court never reached the merits of whether the deployment actually violated Tennessee law. Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said the ruling affirmed that “elected officials cannot use the court system to veto gubernatorial policy.”¹⁷

Civil Liberties Lawsuit Over Treatment of Observers

A separate case is pending in federal court over how task force agents have treated people who try to observe and record their operations. On May 13, 2026, the ACLU and the ACLU of Tennessee filed Demster v. Blanche in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee, on behalf of four Memphis residents. Defendants include the acting Attorney General, the heads of DHS, ICE, CBP, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the Tennessee Highway Patrol.¹⁸

The complaint alleges what the ACLU called a “disturbing and pervasive pattern of retaliation” against people who documented task force activity. Specific allegations include tackling and arresting observers (one plaintiff was detained for 27 hours), swerving vehicles at people filming, photographing observers’ faces and license plates, appearing outside observers’ homes, and taunting individuals by name.¹⁸ The suit also challenges use of Tennessee’s “Halo Law,” enacted in May 2025, which makes it a crime to come within 25 feet of a law enforcement officer after receiving a verbal warning. The ACLU argues agents invoked the law arbitrarily against people who were not interfering with operations.¹⁹ The ACLU filed a motion for a preliminary injunction on May 28, 2026, and no ruling on that motion had been issued as of early June 2026.²⁰

Crime Numbers Before and After the Task Force

Supporters of the deployment point to sharp declines in crime, but the trend line began well before the Guard arrived. Memphis’s worst year was 2023, with roughly 400 homicides and 16,000 vehicle thefts. By the time the task force began operations in late September 2025, overall violent crimes (Part 1 offenses) had already been cut roughly in half from those 2023 highs, and MPD reported crime at a 25-year low.²¹

Declines continued and accelerated in some categories after the task force began. By March 2026, overall Part 1 crimes had dropped by two-thirds from the 2023 peak, motor vehicle thefts were down more than 80 percent, and murders had fallen by more than half over the three-year period. The MPD’s clearance rate also improved after the task force arrived.²¹

The task force’s own operational numbers are substantial. By June 10, 2026, the U.S. Marshals Service reported over 10,000 total arrests, including 92 for homicide, 1,012 for controlled substances, 962 for firearms violations, and 1,062 involving known gang members. The task force had seized 1,708 illegal firearms and located 154 missing children.²² The surge of federal cases was heavy enough that Chief Judge Sheryl Lipman of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee said her court’s caseload had “exploded,” and the court swore in 16 military lawyers to help the Department of Justice handle prosecutions.¹⁰

Cost, Duration, and How Memphis Compares to Other Cities

Memphis is one of several cities where the Trump administration launched National Guard operations during 2025, alongside Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Portland, Chicago, and New Orleans.²³ The Memphis operation cost $33 million through the end of December 2025 and was projected to cost an additional $28 million per month in 2026.²⁴ Total Guard deployment costs across five cities (excluding New Orleans) ran to roughly $496 million for 2025.

Memphis is the only one of these cities where the deployment continued past early 2026. Guard operations in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland were rescinded by February 2026. In Memphis, with the governor’s active support and the appellate court’s standing ruling clearing the legal path, the task force remained operational. No end date, sunset provision, or phase-out plan has been announced.¹

1
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