MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Forty-eight Memphis businesses have publicly pledged to refuse service to members of the Memphis Safe Task Force and to deny entry to agents who arrive without a judicial warrant, organizers announced Monday, August 31 at Tamboli's Pasta and Pizza, with 10 more businesses committed privately, according to the Memphis Flyer. Tennessee Lookout, reporting the campaign Tuesday, September 1, put the count of signed businesses at more than 50.
The campaign, called the BUYcott, is organized by Free the 901, a group started by Black and immigrant-owned business owners, with support from Vecindarios 901, the rapid-response network that monitors immigration enforcement activity in the city. Signers named in coverage include Da Sammich Spot, Tamboli's Pasta and Pizza, Boycott Coffee, and the cocktail bar Cameo.
"You cannot call this public safety when people are afraid to work, afraid to take their children to school, afraid to go to church and afraid to spend money in their own neighborhoods," Da Sammich Spot owner Rob Brown told Tennessee Lookout. In January, dozens of task force members gathered in Brown's parking lot after he posted signage prohibiting ICE access without a valid judicial warrant, the Lookout reported.
The campaign's demands are addressed to four governments, and each is checkable. It asks Mayor Paul Young to end Memphis Police Department partnerships with ICE, Homeland Security Investigations, and Customs and Border Protection, and to declare that city resources will not fund raids or mass arrests. It asks the Memphis City Council to pass a resolution calling for the task force to be dissolved. It asks the Shelby County Commission, seated with eight new members on August 31, to sue Governor Bill Lee over the National Guard deployment. And it asks Governor Lee to recall the Guard, the Tennessee Highway Patrol, and state agencies from the task force, per the Memphis Flyer.
The announcement came one day after the August 30 operation at the El Corralon nightclub on Macon Road, where advocacy groups say more than 100 people were detained in what Vecindarios 901 called the largest immigration raid in Memphis history. Mayor Young, who called the raid "unsettling" per the Flyer, has said MPD was not involved in planning or carrying out the operation. An ICE spokesperson confirmed to Tennessee Lookout that the agency "conducted a multi-agency targeted enforcement operation on Macon Road" on August 30 and described it as an ongoing investigation. No agency has published an official detention count, and no charges against those detained or the business have been made public. Anyone charged is presumed innocent.
The task force's supporters describe its purpose differently. The deployment, launched by President Trump in September 2025, has been credited by the administration with arrests of violent offenders, and the White House has said the operation is aimed at making Memphis safe. The task force has not published a response to the BUYcott campaign.
"I want to make sure this doesn't come across cynically as an idea that being progressive is simply good for your business, it's also good for your community," Cameo general manager Michael Jasud said, per the Memphis Flyer.
Why It Matters for Memphis
This is the first organized private-sector campaign against the deployment, and it converts a year of diffuse objections into four specific requests, each owned by an institution this site covers. Every demand now has a paper trail to watch: a resolution the Council either files or does not, a lawsuit the new Commission either authorizes or does not, a partnership the mayor either ends or does not, and a recall the Governor either orders or does not.
The Oversight Question
Forty-eight businesses put their names on a public demand list. The four governments it names have published nothing in response. Who answers first, and in what document?
Your city. Your money. Your receipts.
