For the first time since WWII, President Trump granted himself broad deportation powers on Saturday by invoking the Alien Enemies Act, a centuries-old statute, in order to remove individuals linked to a Venezuelan gang. In response to Trump’s decision, a federal court temporarily suspended deportations a few hours later.
A broad wartime authority, the statute permits the deportation of non-citizens without the possibility of a hearing before an immigration or federal court judge.
On January 20, Trump further established the framework for his declaration of extraordinary powers to address illegal immigration, something he had suggested at several times throughout his campaign.
The Tren de Aragua gang from Venezuela was named as an invading army in his statement made on Saturday. Obama appointee U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg halted deportations under Trump’s order for two weeks and set a hearing for Friday to hear arguments.
The Alien Enemies Act — what is it?
A number of laws expanding the authority of the federal government were passed by Congress in 1798 as the United States was getting ready for what it thought would be a war with France. Anxieties over potential French sympathies among immigrants prompted the passage of the Alien Enemies Act, which allows broad authority to the president to arrest and deport non-citizens during times of war.
Since then, the act has only been invoked thrice: once in the War of 1812 and again in World Wars I and II.
As anti-foreigner sentiment ran rampant throughout the nation during WWII, it provided a legal basis for the widespread incarceration of German, Italian, and, most notably, Japanese-Americans in the United States. During the war, some 120,000 individuals, including U.S. citizens, were detained because of their Japanese ancestry.
Why did everything boil over on a Saturday?
Five Venezuelan males detained at an immigration detention center in Raymondville, Texas, were allegedly placed under “imminent risk of removal” under the Alien Enemies Act, according to a preemptive lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Democracy Forward against Trump in a federal court in Washington, D.C., late Friday. The immediate response from the Justice Department was to challenge Boasberg’s decision to stop their deportation.
A yearlong jail sentence for around 300 people accused of being part of the Tren de Aragua gang was agreed upon by the Trump administration and El Salvador for $6 million almost simultaneously.
El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, and Marco Rubio, the U.S. secretary of state, met to discuss placing migrants in El Salvador’s infamous jails, and the two countries eventually reached an arrangement. Since 2022, in an effort to curb gang violence, Bukele’s administration has apprehended approximately 84,000 individuals, occasionally without proper legal procedure.
According to ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt, two aircraft on Saturday may have transported individuals deported as a result of Trump’s declaration, with one flight likely bound for Honduras and the other for El Salvador. Boasberg warned that such planes would have to turn around and head back to America.
Are we really in a war, America?
Illegal immigrants have been called a “invasion” of the United States for years by Trump and his supporters. When President Joe Biden was in office, the number of people arrested at the U.S.-Mexico border surpassed 2 million for two years in a row. Many of these individuals were allowed to enter the country in search of asylum. They reached a record high of 250,000 in December 2023, but fell to its lowest point since the 1960s in February, falling to less than 8,400.
In his inauguration address, Trump stated that the legislation will play a crucial role in his crackdown on immigration.
“I will eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks bringing devastating crime to U.S. soil by invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798,” he stated, directing our government to deploy the full and massive authority of federal and state law enforcement. Protecting the United States of America against foreign invaders and dangers is my number one duty as commander in chief.
Many believe Trump is misusing the statute by targeting non-state entities rather than foreign countries.
Brennan Center for Justice stated, “At odds with centuries of legislative, presidential, and judicial practice” and that “invoking it in peacetime to bypass conventional immigration law would be a staggering abuse.”
“Contemporary understandings of equal protection and due process conflict with summary detentions and deportations under the law,” the Brennan Center said.
Is it possible to invade a country through illegal immigration?
That’s an innovative and unproven claim. Despite Trump’s warnings about the influence of Latin American criminal gangs in the United States, the reality is that criminal activity is committed by a negligible fraction of the illegal immigrants.
An invasion of predatory incursion into U.S. territory is being “perpetrated, attempted, and threatened” by Tren de Aragua, according to Trump’s war proclamation from Saturday. He said that on Maduro’s orders, the gang was waging “irregular warfare” against the US.
Tren de Aragua began in a notoriously anarchic jail in the central state of Aragua and went with millions of other Venezuelans who fled the country in search of better living circumstances when the economy collapsed a decade ago.
By designating Tren de Aragua and seven other Latin American criminal groups as “foreign terrorist organizations” last month, the Trump administration increased sanctions on U.S.-based cartels and anybody providing them with funds or support.
According to a study released last month by Congress’s research arm, officials may contend that the gang’s actions in the United States constitute a limited invasion in light of the international terrorist designations. “This theory appears to be unprecedented and has not been subject to judicial review,” the Congressional Research Service concluded.
With a few rare exceptions, the Venezuelan government has seldom repatriated its citizens from the United States. About 180 individuals, including approximately 350 deportees who spent up to 16 days in the U.S. naval facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were escorted to Venezuela.
