Report Highlights
- Less violent crimes: Trump ordered a surge in law enforcement in Memphis to stop violent crime. But crime in the city has declined steadily since 2023, hitting a 25-year low before the rise began.
- Arrests for non-violent crimes: The vast majority of the more than 5,200 arrests made by the Memphis Safe Task Force in its first four months were for nonviolent crimes.
- Immigrants at risk: According to our analysis, of the arrests made by the Immigration Task Force, about four in five followed traffic stops, leaving many immigrants in fear.
These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
On an overcast Saturday in February, a street vendor named Elmer lined up dozens of pairs of worn but carefully cleaned tennis shoes on tables next to a convenience store.
This 44-year-old Honduran father seemed to be turning his head, greeting the handful of customers who approached while scanning the busy thoroughfare behind him. He was ready to serve – or flee.
Last fall, as Elmer and his son were setting up their shoe stand, he said, agents wearing Homeland Security vests arrested two Guatemalans in a nearby parking lot. Hours later, the Mexican owner of a taco truck across the street was also arrested by immigration authorities.
Then, in December, Elmer’s 19-year-old nephew was also arrested following a traffic stop; he remains incarcerated in a Tennessee detention center. Elmer fears that he and his son will be next. They fled Honduras seven years ago to escape gang violence and are not allowed to stay in the United States. Elmer spoke to MLK50: Justice Through Journalism and ProPublica on the condition that only his first name be used.
Those around Elmer were swept away as part of President Donald Trump’s September order deploying more than two dozen state, local and federal law enforcement agencies, including the National Guard, to neighborhoods in Memphis, Tennessee. Unlike federal operations in Minneapolis, Chicago and other cities where immigration agents took to the streets to speed up evictionsthe declared mission of Memphis Safety Task Force was different: “to end street crime and violent crime in Memphis to the greatest extent possible.”
But just over a quarter of the more than 5,200 arrests made by the task force in and around Memphis were for violent crimes, according to an MLK50 and ProPublica analysis of nearly four months of daily arrest reports from October to early February. The vast majority of arrests for violent crimes stemmed from outstanding arrest warrants.
And although violent criminals were the task force’s primary target, the operation resulted in the arrest of more than 800 immigrants who law enforcement considered to be illegally present in the United States. Of them, only 2% – or 17 – were also arrested for violent crimes, according to our analysis. Unlawful presence itself constitutes a civil offense and not a criminal offense.
New immigration-related arrests have taken place in and around Promenade villagethe neighborhood where Elmer sells shoes, than in any other neighborhood in Memphis, according to our analysis. This predominantly black community located on the outskirts of downtown is also one of the fastest growing Hispanic neighborhoods in Memphis. It is dotted with immigrant-owned businesses – hair salons, grocery stores, tax preparers – that serve a predominantly Spanish-speaking clientele. Other vendors sell tamales and cheese from the trunks of their cars. Overall, 81 percent of arrests made by neighborhood task forces were for nonviolent crimes, including immigration violations, drug offenses, theft and illegal weapons possession.
Trump has repeatedly said proclaimed success in Memphis, awarding the task force more than 30% drop homicides, aggravated assaults and sexual assaults compared to the same period last year.
While some research showed that a rise in policing could deter crimedata from the Memphis Police Department indicates that crime was already on a steady decline since 2023, reaching an all-time high. lowest in 25 years before the task force began operations last fall. Criminologists say further analysis is needed to determine the task force’s impact on crime rates in Memphis.
Abigail Jackson, White House spokesperson, said crime rates have continued to decline thanks to “the excellent work of President Trump’s task force.”
“Every local leader should want to emulate this success,” she said in a written statement.
Jackson did not answer questions about the gap between the task force’s stated mission to end violent crime and the fact that so few of the immigrants arrested were suspected of committing such crimes. Neither does Brady McCarron, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service, which leads the task force. Instead, he reiterated Trump’s claims that the task force had restored law and order to Memphis.
“All Memphians are safer today than they were seven months ago because of the Memphis Safe Task Force,” McCarron said in a written statement. “Calls for service have decreased by 18% since last year. This means fewer crimes are being committed and residents are having to call to get a response from law enforcement.”
In response to some Memphians saying the task force’s immigration activities put them at risk and discouraged immigrants from reporting crimes and cooperating with police, McCarron said, “We are aware of the concerns raised by community advocates. Our goal remains to root out violent offenders, recover illegal firearms, and protect all Memphis residents, including communities that are disproportionately victimized by violent crime.”
What the Trump administration is celebrating as a successful tough-on-crime campaign, Latino advocacy groups and civil rights organizations say, is a crusade that has left much of the Hispanic community in turmoil and fear, as it grapples with the social isolation, economic instability and trauma the task force brought.
The task force has reduced Elmer’s world to work, church and a rental house near the railroad tracks that he shares with his 20-year-old son, whom he raised alone.
Three of Elmer’s siblings also live in Memphis, but since the task force arrived, family reunions have been rare. No one wants to risk being arrested while driving through town.
During the week, Elmer buys used Nikes, New Balances and other sneakers at thrift stores, then sells them in front of the neighborhood convenience store on the weekends. Elmer said he sells 100 pairs of shoes a week. Now he’s lucky if he sells 20, which earns him $500 a month instead of his usual $2,400.
Elmer said his father, a former police officer who owned a car rental business in Honduras’ capital, was shot after refusing to pay a local gang. Elmer lifted his chin as he spoke to stop the tears from falling.
“Sometimes I ask my son, ‘What would your life be like if we never left?’ “, Elmer said through a Spanish interpreter. “He said, ‘I’d probably be dead,'” killed by the same gang that took his grandfather.
Ever vigilant, Elmer mapped out three emergency exits from his shoe stand, just in case the task force reappeared. As he pointed out to them, a Tennessee Highway Patrol SUV flew down the road behind him, lights flashing and sirens blaring.
On a recent Friday afternoon, while Elmer was working, an unmarked white SUV leaving the parking lot slowed to a stop a few feet from his shoe stand. Immigration agents wearing thick green vests sat inside the vehicle, looking at Elmer and the Hispanic men who stood beside him.
The officers didn’t say a word, Elmer recalled, but “I could feel the intimidation because I know who they are.”
Although it seemed like an eternity, Elmer said, the federal agents only looked at them for about 10 seconds — long enough for Elmer to abandon the escape routes he had planned and remember his son’s advice: Don’t run, or they might come after you.
Then he froze, waiting for the moment to pass.
A campaign against violent crime has swept away immigrants
Last month, Trump came to Memphis and declared victory from a stage decorated with seized weapons and boxes stamped “DEA EVIDENCE.”
“You have now developed a reputation as a comeback city stronger than any city in the country because of what happened with crime and because your political leaders have the courage to do what they did,” Trump told hundreds of National Guard troops, law enforcement officers and local and state Republican leaders gathered in a Tennessee Air National Guard hangar.
Armored vehicles and a law enforcement helicopter were parked next to the scene, flanking the president and other administration officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller. Miller worked closely with Tennessee Republicans al or as they try to pass bills requiring courts, public health clinics and law enforcement to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Trump administration has rented the proposed legislation and the task force as possible models for the rest of the country.
The influx of law enforcement has created a political minefield for Memphis Mayor Paul Young, a Democrat living in a blue corner of a Republican-led state. Hours after Trump’s appearance, at which the mayor was not present, Young said at a news conference that the task force had “amplified” the work already done by Memphis police to reduce crime and that the increased law enforcement presence had led to “better results,” including in the execution of warrants. About half of all task force arrests were for outstanding arrest warrants.
But Young said he disagreed with the task force’s role in immigration enforcement. “This is not part of the effort that I support,” he told reporters. “I think immigrants in our community have played a vital role in the growth of our city over the last 10 to 15 years, and we want them to feel welcome in our community.
For immigrants without ID, some say one of the riskiest things they can do since the task force arrived is get behind the wheel. Of the immigration-related arrests made by the task force, about 4 in 5 followed traffic stops, according to the MLK50 and ProPublica analysis. The Tennessee Highway Patrol, which leads the task force’s traffic enforcement efforts, typically initiates traffic stops — often for minor violations such as a broken tail light or windows that are too dark. Then immigration Police officers, who often follow or accompany state agents, question the driver and passengers, according to Vecindarios 901, an immigration rapid response organization that has witnessed dozens of arrests. Those who cannot provide the appropriate documents are arrested.
The task force did not respond to questions about the use of traffic stops as the primary means of stopping immigrants who are not authorized to be in the United States.
As law enforcement infiltrated Parkway Village, church attendance plummeted, according to a pastor of a primarily indigenous Guatemalan congregation; Parishioners, too afraid to leave their homes, chose instead to submit their prayer requests through online services, she said. The pastors agreed to serve as guardians of their members’ U.S.-born children in the event their parents were deported.
Business owners and grocery store workers say sales have plummeted, forcing some to cut staff. During the first weeks of the task force’s operations, Hispanic student attendance at one neighborhood school dropped by half, one administrator said.
At another school in the neighborhood, the communications coordinator, Paola, began her workday at the reception by greeting the students. Now she often starts it in her car, taking two siblings to school. The 21-year-old Venezuelan intervened after the arrest of the children’s father. in October during an immigration court appointment. Their mother is afraid to take them to school.
Paola and her father were initially afraid that she too would be arrested even though she was allowed to work in the United States. She agreed to be interviewed on the condition that only her middle name be used to protect her and her family.
“Our role is not political,” she said. “We are here to take care of students and their families. »
Just minutes from Winchester Road, a bustling street in Parkway Village, Reverend Rolando Rostro also watches over his community. Rostro is pastor of Iglesia Nueva Vida, the largest Hispanic church in the Memphis area, where Sunday attendance dropped from 800 to 500 during the task force’s first months. Parishioners still live in fear, but attendance has gradually increased, he explained. “We have to go to church.”
Alerted to traffic stops through phone calls or an online system set up by Vecindarios 901, Rostro often responds to the scene after state troopers or county sheriff’s officers — followed by federal agents — have stopped the drivers. It’s part of his “mission” as pastor during a difficult time for his community, he said; he will testify and demand the release of the arrested immigrants. “The Bible says, ask and you will receive,” he said.
Sometimes he recognizes his parishioners.
“Hey, it’s not ‘the worst of the worst” Rostro told law enforcement officers, refuting the Trump administration’s characterization of immigrants targeted by federal officials. “I know him. He goes to my church. He’s a good man,” Rostro said — hoping that sharing details about people’s lives would “plant the seed of a different way of looking at things.”
During Trump’s first administration, Rostro said one of his parishioners was released from ICE detention after speaking with agents.
But that didn’t happen this time.
So he inquired with church members who were being detained, learning that they were being held in cold, rat-infested conditions and forced to return to their home countries. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said ICE maintains higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons, but would not address the conditions in which Rostro’s parishioners are held.
“This is a family community,” Rostro said, “so its breakup is very detrimental to the children and the entire family structure.”
A disrupted community hub
A few miles from the church, Juan Hernandez, a native of Mexico, led a reporter through El Mercadito, the sprawling indoor mall he opened in 2005. Vendors at the normally bustling mall had few customers to greet on an early March afternoon.
With dozens of immigrant-run stands selling everything from neon safety vests for construction workers to frilly dresses for little girls, El Mercadito also rents space for events, including lucha libre (Mexican wrestling) and quinceañeras.
But since October, bookings for birthday parties have declined. As shoppers stayed home, some stall owners struggled to pay rent, Hernandez said. Two Guatemalan stall owners were so afraid to come to work that they closed their clothing stalls.
During the task force’s first weeks, Hernández tried to calm the fears of shoppers, sellers and his employees at the Mexican restaurant inside the market. He hired private security to guard the gates and monitor video cameras for signs of task force agents. Then he realized that it was traffic stops by state troopers that most often led to immigration arrests, and so he no longer needed the guards.
Two or three times a week, federal agents showed up at his restaurant for breakfast. First one, then two, then eight or more, bringing the tables together. When they left to get into their car, Hernandez saw them putting on vests marked HSI: Homeland Security Investigations.
Twice, someone – he is not sure if it was a customer or a stall owner – posted photos of El Mercadito agents on social media, to warn customers to stay away.
Hernandez understands why people are wary: Two of his friends were deported by immigration authorities across town, leaving teenagers behind. The sister of one of his servants was arrested.
But, as he explained to his vendors and employees in a meeting, the absence of customers or diners means no income for the stall owners or the restaurant. He said restaurant sales have dropped 40% since the task force launched.
“I used to have these angry feelings like, you know, they’re looking for us, and then they come and eat here,” Hernandez said through a Spanish interpreter, but there was nothing he could do. “They were paying for the food, so we have to serve.”
Hernandez usually offers police officers 10 percent off their checks, but not for this group. “I have decided not to give them a discount because of the harm they are doing to our community. »
Hernandez was granted amnesty under Republican President Ronald Reagan when he arrived in the United States more than 40 years ago. He said he was now forced to consider the unthinkable.
“I never had the idea of returning to my country,” he said. “Now I do – because of the government.”
