Citing high crime, Trump signed an order in September deploying federal resources to the Tennessee city.
The U.S. Marshals Service has located and returned dozens of missing children in Memphis, Tennessee, over the past several weeks, the law enforcement agency announced.
While few details were provided, the service said that 101 children were safely returned over a 40-day operation, according to a brief Nov. 8 press release issued by the agency.
“We are happy that we have been able to use our fugitive hunting skills to assist local and state authorities with finding these missing children,” Emily Williams, a U.S. Marshals spokeswoman, said in a statement.
“What a testament to our partnerships to be able to work these cases together. While investigative work is tedious, locating missing and endangered children is one of the things we are most proud of.”
Earlier this year, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said that it would launch a multi-agency effort to reduce crime in Memphis, which is among the most violent major U.S. cities.
On Oct. 29, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced at the time that federal agents had rescued about 80 missing children and arrested 1,700 people, including 126 gang members.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in mid-September to send in the National Guard to the city, citing its crime rate.
Trump told reporters at the Oval Office that the deployed troops would join a special task force in the city comprising officials from various federal agencies, including the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the U.S. Marshal’s Service.
He said the goal would be to reduce crime, as was the case in Washington, where the National Guard was sent and the city’s local police force was federalized. Other cities have also had National Guard deployments this year, including Los Angeles and Chicago.
“This task force will be a replica of our extraordinarily successful efforts here,” Trump said of federal efforts in Washington during his signing of the Memphis order in September. “And you’ll see it’s a lot of the same thing, although the numbers here are really something, they’re really bad.”
