U.S. President Donald Trump announced his intention to deploy National Guard troops to Memphis, Tennessee, to combat crime, stating the city is “deeply troubled.”

This move follows a similar action where his administration placed Washington D.C.’s police department under direct federal control. Trump has emphasized crime as a key issue, even as violent crime rates have generally decreased in many cities.

He indicated that Memphis’s Democratic mayor was supportive of the deployment. Memphis, with a population of 611,000, faces one of the nation’s highest violent crime rates, and its poverty rate is more than double the national average.

The Justice Department had previously sent federal agents to assist Memphis in 2020. Trump also mentioned the possibility of sending federal personnel to New Orleans and had previously threatened, but not executed, a deployment to Chicago. The article notes that violent crime in Washington D.C. had hit a 30-year low in 2024.

with information from Reuters