In late 2025, Harvard Kennedy School professor Sandra Susan Smith expressed skepticism about the Trump administration’s decision to target a dozen American cities—including Oakland, Chicago, New Orleans, Los Angeles, New York, Portland, and Washington, D.C.—for temporary federal law-enforcement and National Guard deployments aimed at reducing crime and restoring order. Smith wondered “about what the consequences for deploying federalized forces are, especially for black and brown people in the cities that have been targeted for intervention.” She continued: “What seems clear to me is that the costs that are associated with this federal intervention will far outweigh the meager and very short-term benefits.”
One of the targeted cities was Memphis.
