Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the results of Memphis Safe Street’s task force recent crackdown on crime. Bondi while speaking to members of the press revealed 3,100 arrests were made by the task force and 121 missing children were found. Since late September, hundreds of federal, state and local law enforcement personnel tied to the Memphis Safe Task Force have made traffic stops, served warrants and searched for fugitives in the city of about 610,000 people. More than 2,800 people have been arrested and more than 28,000 traffic citations have been issued, data provided by the task force and Memphis police shows. The task force, which includes National Guard troops, is supported by Republican Gov. Bill Lee and others who hope the surge reduces crime in a city that has grappled with violent crime, including nearly 300 homicides last year and nearly 400 in 2023. From 2018 to 2024, homicides in Memphis increased 33% and aggravated assaults rose 41, according to AH Datalytics, which tracks crimes across the country using local law enforcement data for its Real-Time Crime Index. But AH Datalytics reported those numbers were down 20% during the first nine months of this year, even before the task force got to work. Opponents of the task force in majority-Black Memphis say it targets minorities and intimidates law-abiding Latinos, some of whom have skipped work and changed social habits, such as avoiding going to church or restaurants, fearing they will be harassed and unfairly detained. Statistics released at the end of October showed 319 arrests so far on administrative warrants, which deal with immigration-related issues. The operation by federal officers come as federal officers are about to conduct Operation Swamp Sweep in the neighboring state of Louisiana. As Border Patrol prepares to head to Louisiana for its upcoming immigration operation, a former police lieutenant says an operation this size is “monumental.” “We have an unprecedented issue with illegal immigration, so that unfortunately means we require an unprecedented response to get it under control,” Randy Sutton, retired police lieutenant with the Las Vegas Police Department, told. The upcoming immigration crackdown, called “Operation Swamp Sweep,” will be taking place in New Orleans on Dec. 1. According to DHS, around 250 Border Patrol agents will be in the city for the two-month operation, which aims to arrest 5,000 in the U.S. illegally across southeast Louisiana to Mississippi. Sutton said he has heard from fellow law enforcement officers that Louisiana was chosen for the site of the next federal immigration operation because of its high crime rate, which they could correlate to illegal immigration. He says the city of New Orleans has also never cooperated with federal law enforcement in the past due to its sanctuary city status, which has led to the upcoming events. “The federal government is simply not taking it anymore, and they’re going after the illegal migrants,” Sutton said. “They’re not going after the people standing around at Home Depot, that’s not their main mission, it’s to get rid of the criminal aliens that have committed crimes and made it less safe in that city.”
