ACLU seeks injunction over Memphis Safe Task Force retaliation against observers

In mid-May 2026 the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Tennessee, and co-counsel Selendy Gay PLLC and BraunHagey & Borden LLP sued in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee on behalf of Memphis residents who say they faced retaliation for observing and filming the Memphis Safe Task Force. On May 28, 2026, the plaintiffs moved for a preliminary injunction and filed sworn declarations from nine community members detailing the alleged conduct. The named defendants include Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and the heads of DHS, ICE, CBP, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the Tennessee Highway Patrol.

The declarations describe agents in unmarked vehicles tailing observers and accelerating to within inches of their bumpers, surveillance outside their homes, pretextual traffic stops, taunting observers by name, and at least one incident in which a declarant was tackled "with immense force" and arrested. The suit also challenges the task force's use of Tennessee's "Halo Law," which makes it a crime to come within 25 feet of law enforcement after a warning; plaintiffs say agents invoke it arbitrarily to stop people lawfully documenting officers in public. The conduct described targets First Amendment–protected observation of government activity, which is why the entry maps the allegations to protester surveillance and targeting critics with government power.

The Memphis Safe Task Force is a 31-agency federal-state operation that has flooded the city since September 2025, activated by Gov. Bill Lee and directed under a Trump executive order, with thousands of federal, state, and National Guard personnel deployed into routine urban policing — the basis for the federal-deployment and militarization-of-policing mappings. The allegations are contained in sworn declarations within active litigation and have not been adjudicated; the entry records the filing and its documented claims, not a court finding.