President Trump is planning to convene a wartime law on Friday called the Alien Enemy Act of 1798 to authorize brief deportations of some immigrants, including to Guantanamo Bay, escalating his administration-wide migrant repression.
The 227-year-old law gives the president extraordinary power to order non-citizens over 14 to arrest, detain and deport and to “invade or predatory” countries from the state
Mr. Trump is expected to list 18th-century regulations that order the rapid detention and deportation of alleged Venezuelan gangs, whose administration has designated a foreign terrorist organization, and he requests anonymous discussion of internal deliberations.
A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order on Saturday challenging Mr. Trump’s lawsuit invoked the bill after the ACLU and Democratic Front filed a lawsuit. The temporary restraining order protects five Venezuelans detained in Texas and New York. A remote hearing was set on Saturday afternoon. The American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement that it plans to require “under the bill, temporary restraining orders will be extended to everyone at risk of being removed.”
Two U.S. officials said shortly after Trump invoked the Alien Enemy Act, officials were ready to send suspicious gang members to the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Officials have been detaining some immigrants awaiting deportation at naval bases, despite the empty holdings earlier this week.
Those subject to the Foreign Enemy Act will not be allowed to undergo a court hearing or asylum interview because they will be handled under emergency situations, wartime authorization rather than immigration laws. Instead, they are eligible for detention and deportation, with little to no proper procedure, under Title 50, the United States Regulation Housing American War and Defense Act.
CNN first reported on Mr. Trump’s earliest plan to invoke the law on Friday.
In American history, including during World War II, the government used it to monitor and detain American Italian, German and Japanese immigrants, only invoked the Alien Enemy Act a few times in U.S. history
It invoked targeted immigration from countries where the United States did not have active war and would almost certainly face legal challenges.
Mr. Trump previewed his invocation of the Alien Enemy Act in an executive order issued on the first day of the White House. It directs the Secretary of the Department of National and Homeland Security to plan potential legal invoices and prepares facilities to “accelerate evictions”.
“By invoking the Foreign Enemies Act of 1798, I will direct our government to use the full and immense power of federal and state law enforcement to eliminate the existence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks and bring devastating crime to the lands of the United States, including our cities and internal cities,” Inauguration ceremony.
CBS News contacted representatives from the White House and Department of Homeland Security.
Camilo Montoya-Galvez
