As feds descend on Memphis, local advocates prepare to respond

Protesters stream through downtown Memphis on Saturday in reaction to the deployment of National Guard troops in the city. (Photo: Karen Pulfer Focht for the Tennessee Lookout)

Residents of Memphis are expecting to see a surge in federal and state law enforcement officers in their city as early as today to carry out President Donald Trump’s order for “large-scale saturation of besieged neighborhoods with law enforcement personnel.”

More than a dozen federal law enforcement agencies, an unspecified number of National Guard members and 300 Tennessee Highway Patrol officers will be part of a “sustained” presence to fight crime in one of the nation’s largest majority Black cities beginning this week, There is no specific end date to the operation, Gov. Bill Lee said Friday. 

National Guard troops will be deputized by the U.S. Marshals Service to support local law enforcement and will not be armed nor make arrests, Lee said.

The federal show of force includes immigration enforcement officers; the Tennessee Highway Patrol, under an agreement entered earlier this year, also has immigration enforcement powers. 

Local faith leaders, community groups, elected officials and legal rights organizations opposed to hundreds of outside personnel authorized by the so-called Memphis Safe Task Force initiated a series of actions last week in response. 

On Saturday, protestors gathered separately in Memphis and at the state capitol in Nashville to formally launch the “Free the 901” campaign, a coalition formed by local and state nonprofit organizations after Trump issued his executive order Sept. 15 to “restore law and order” to Memphis.

The group has set up a text alert system and said it intends to provide training to residents and coordinate rapid volunteer response to law enforcement actions while advocating for policies to address root causes of violence.

Cardell Orrin, Tennessee director of Stand for Children, said the group’s goal is to find ways to “limit the harm” of the federal presence and identify and provide support to Memphians impacted. 

On Wednesday, the ACLU Tennessee sent a letter to Memphis Mayor Paul Young and Memphis Police Chief C.J. Davis detailing the city’s obligations to comply with a long-running consent decree that protects the First Amendment rights of Memphians.

The Kendrick Consent decree was enacted in 1978 in response to revelations that Memphis police had used a domestic intelligence unit to surveille and target civil rights leaders. The decree was updated in 2020 to include safeguards against police use of modern surveillance technology. 

The agreement between the ACLU and Memphis specifically bars cooperation by Memphis police with federal and state agencies in activities that violate First Amendment rights, including sharing information such as photographs, recordings and social media posts of individuals engaged in lawful protests, absent a legitimate law enforcement reason, according to Stella Yarbrough, ACLU-TN Legal Director 

“The Kendrick Consent Decree represents nearly five decades of protection for Memphis residents’ First Amendment rights,” she said.

Tennessee National Guard set for Memphis deployment next week

“Federal and National Guard involvement in local law enforcement doesn’t diminish these protections. In fact, it makes strict compliance more critical than ever. Memphis police cannot use federal coordination as a backdoor to conduct the very surveillance activities this decree was designed to prevent,” Yarbrough said. 

Memphis officials responded late last week with a request to a meeting with lawyers for the ACLU Tennessee, a spokesperson for the organization confirmed Friday. 

Some city officials in Memphis have also individually taken steps to prepare residents for a surge in law enforcement.

Shelby County General Sessions Clerk Tami Sawyer, who has expressed concerns about the potential impact of the law enforcement influx on already-overcrowded detention centers, issued a public “preventative maintenance checklist” for individuals to protect themselves. 

The list advises individuals to check for or clear outstanding warrants, memorize phone numbers of family or trusted friends and make an emergency plan for children and pets if detained.

Shelby County Commissioner Erica Sugarman, in Washington, DC last week, said she was also sharing information gleaned from advocates in the nation’s capitol after the National Guard deployment there.

Her deepest concern, Sugarman said, is “educating the people how to react and not to react,” particularly young people. 

“We’ve got 12th graders who are driving around,” she said. “I want to make sure they know their headlights are working and understand their legal rights, that law enforcement isn’t the judge, jury and prosecutor.”

Appearing alongside the Tennessee governor last week, Memphis’s Democratic Mayor Paul Young, who previously said he had not asked for the federal presence, appeared more conciliatory. The mayor has noted that crime has fallen in Memphis by double digit percentage since January 2024. 

Not all Memphis leaders are opposed to the surge to fight crime in the city. Last week, a resolution to block the deployment and a resolution to set parameters, including a 90-day limit, on a federal law enforcement presence failed to pass at the Shelby County Commission.

“I know there are a lot of questions in our community. There’s a lot of feelings, passionate emotions, whether you’re for it or against it. But as the leader of our city, my goal is to make sure that as resources come into our community, we find ways to use them effectively and for the benefit of the residents of our great city,” Young said.

Last week, the city of Memphis launched a website to provide updates and information on the federal surge and provide residents with a contact number to lodge complaints. 

“This is our moment to show the world the truth about Memphis,” read a message from Young on the site. “We are a city that rises, a city that leads, and a city that defines itself not by challenges, but by our culture, innovation, and hope.”