President Donald Trump is deploying the National Guard in Memphis, Tennessee, continuing an aggressive campaign of using military forces to fight crime.

Trump earlier deployed the National Guard in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C, amid strong criticism from Democrats in those areas and legal challenges. But in Memphis, Trump is targeting a Republican-controlled state where the governor has welcomed the intervention.

Trump gathered Tennessee leaders and members of his administration in the Oval Office on Sept. 15 to sign a memorandum creating the Memphis Safe Task Force, which he said was requested by the state's governor. The task force will include the National Guard, FBI, Homeland Security, and other federal forces, Trump said, and is modeled on the D.C. operation.

"We're going to make Memphis safe again," Trump said.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee thanked Trump for committing federal resources to Memphis.

“We are very hopeful and excited about the prospect of moving that city forward,” Lee said, adding that he’s “tired of crime holding the great city of Memphis back.”

Memphis, which has long struggled with crime, had the highest rates of murder and other violent crime of any large city in the country in 2024, according to a USA TODAY analysis of FBI data from 30 cities with more than 500,000 residents. Memphis had 40.6 homicides per 100,000 people compared to a rate of 25.5 per 100,000 in the nation's capital, which ranked fifth.

Memphis Mayor Paul Young, a Democrat, criticized Trump's plan to deploy the Guard in his city when the president announced it last week."I do not think it’s the way to drive down crime," Young said.

Trump has talked about deploying the Guard in other major cities, including Chicago, St. Louis, and New Orleans.

"We think Chicago is going to be next," he said Sept. 15. "We'll get to St. Louis also... and New Orleans we want to get to.

Contributing: Joey Garrison, Davis Winkie, Lucas Finton, Brooke Muckerman

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump deploys National Guard to Memphis, continuing military crime-fighting push

Reporting by Zac Anderson, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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