The president invoked the law before deporting 250 members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, a move challenged by the ACLU and others in court.
President Donald Trump has issued a proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law providing for deportations of noncitizens during times of war or invasion.
The proclamation targets members of the Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang, which Trump links to the socialist regime in Venezuela. Trump declared TdA a foreign terrorist organization in February.
The case is in legal limbo after several groups sued the administration.
Meanwhile, the act has already been used as the basis for a deportation flight carrying hundreds of Venezuelan nationals to El Salvador under an agreement announced a day earlier.
History of the Law
The Alien Enemies Act was part of the Alien and Sedition Acts enacted in 1798 by the Federalist legislature during the naval quasi-war between the United States and France.
The law authorizes the president to “apprehend, restrain, secure and remove, as alien enemies” citizens of a hostile nation during declared wars or times of invasion.
The law, which has been used only rarely over 227 years, was first invoked against British nationals by President James Madison during the War of 1812.
In 1917, after Congress declared war on Germany, President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation that applied to Germans and later to Austro-Hungarians, Bulgarians, and Ottoman nationals. Thousands were registered, and some were interned.
During World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt used the act as the basis for the mass internment of noncitizen Japanese, German, and Italian nationals. The internment of Japanese American citizens was under a different authority.
Deportation Flights Begin
Trump’s proclamation marks the first attempted use of the law since World War II and is the first that doesn’t rely on a state of declared war.
Rather, Trump’s proclamation is based on the language that permits such authority during “any invasion or predatory incursion … against the territory of the United States, by any foreign nation or government.”
In the proclamation, Trump said that TdA is perpetrating such an invasion “at the direction, clandestine or otherwise, of [Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s] regime.”
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By Joseph Lord
