Collection
Federal Deployments on American Soil
This collection was compiled during the occupation of Minneapolis by federal immigration forces in the winter of 2025. At the nation’s inception, the founders made a point of preventing presidents from deploying such a force. This was the generation, after all, who had witnessed the British occupiers using force against their compatriots in the lead-up to the Revolution. In 1784, Richard Henry Lee wrote to James Monroe that the consequence of a standing army was the “destruction of liberty.” But by 1792, Congress had already begun to cede some of its power to call “forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions” to the executive branch. The original version of this collection was featured in Continuum, the joint newsletter of Bunk and HNN, on February 5, 2026: tinyurl.com/Continuum2-5-26
