Mayors warn Trump threatens crime drops in majority-Black cities

Source: Axios

8 hours ago


Violent crime is falling in some majority-Black U.S. communities even as mayors warn that President Trump's cuts to prevention programs and threats of National Guard deployments could reverse the trend.

Why it matters: Drops in violence mark progress in cities long hit hardest by crime, but the Trump administration is using crime rates as a pretext to send troops to expand federal control over blue cities.

Driving the news: Trump announced this month he's sending National Guard troops to Memphis to address the city's crime, prioritizing Democratic-led cities where GOP governors back intervention. He also said he would send them to New Orleans.

The big picture: The nation's violent and property crime rates dropped to a two-decade low in 2024, according to new FBI data, and early 2025 numbers show homicides declining in major cities so far.

Despite those trends, Trump has insisted that crime in many Democratic-led cities, like Washington, D.C., and Chicago, is out of control, even as crime also declines in those urban areas.