National Guard deploying to Memphis next, Trump says
The Trump administration announced plans to send the National Guard into Memphis, the third city that National Guardsmen have been ordered into.
Trump announced plans to send the National Guard to Memphis while on an interview with Fox News on Friday.
“We’re going to Memphis. I’m just announcing that now, and we’ll straighten that out — National Guard and anybody else we need. And by the way, we’ll bring in the military, too, if we need it,” he said. The deployment will be to address crime in the city.
The announcement marks a change in plans for Trump’s claims of where he would next order the military. Trump had repeatedly threatened to send in the National Guard to Chicago for weeks, which he had repeatedly threatened to do for weeks. No date has been announced for when troops would appear in Memphis, nor has the number of guardsmen involved been revealed.
The news came a day before the Washington Post reported on plans drawn up by the Pentagon to send 1,000 National Guardsmen into cities in Louisiana for law enforcement roles. Documents including a draft memo obtained by the Washington Post outline plans for the military to supplement local law enforcement in major cities such as Baton Rouge and New Orleans, if Gov. Jeff Landry requests federal assistance. Per the paper there’s no indication the plan has been put into effect or any request has been made.
The Memphis deployment comes a month after he ordered the District of Columbia National Guard to mobilize inside Washington, D.C. over claims of rampant crime (Department of Justice data showed crime was a major low). It also comes three months after he federalized thousands of California National Guard soldiers and sent them and hundreds of Marines to Los Angeles County in response to protests over immigration raids.
After Trump’s announcement, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee confirmed that the National Guard would be involved in a multi-agency law enforcement partnership. The FBI is already leading a large-scale mission, dubbed “Operation Viper,” in the city. In a statement on Friday, Lee said that “[t]he next phase will include a comprehensive mission with the Tennessee National Guard, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Tennessee Highway Patrol, Memphis Police Department, and other law enforcement agencies.” He did not specify how many National Guardsmen would be involved, saying that details were still being determined. Both Tennessee and Louisiana have sent National Guard troops to D.C.
Memphis Mayor Paul Young said he had heard from the governor that discussions were ongoing with the White House about potentially sending in the National Guard, but told CNN he did not hear definitively until Trump announced it Friday.
The Pentagon has not commented on the details in the plans for Louisiana that the Washington Post reported on. The newspaper reported that a Pentagon spokesperson said that “Leaked documents should not be interpreted as policy. We will not discuss these plans through leaked documents, pre-decisional or otherwise.”
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Previous deployments
Since June the federal government has deployed thousands of National Guardsmen to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. In Los Angeles, more than 4,000 troops were put under federal control under Title 10 of the U.S. Code. The move came after Angelenos protested Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, and troops were sent to protect federal personnel and property but not directly conduct law enforcement activity. They were spotted providing security for federal law enforcement in drug and immigration raids throughout southern California.
As of Sept. 12, 300 California National Guard troops remain under federal control, while Marines left weeks earlier. A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration violated the Posse Comitatus Act by using the troops for law enforcement, although the White House has appealed that ruling.
In D.C., troops from seven states have joined District of Columbia National Guardsmen. They have been patrolling parks and metro stops, guarding monuments and picking up trash. A federal emergency order that let the federal government take control of the Metropolitan Police Department expired on Sept. 10, returning authority back to the city, although current orders have the District of Columbia National Guard set to remain active in Washington through the end of November. Earlier this month Georgia became the latest state to announce it was sending troops to aid Joint Task Force – District of Columbia, although they were going specifically to relieve units already there rather than add to the total number of personnel active in the district.
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