The Alien Enemies Act is a historic wartime authority that has been seldom used in U.S. history. It allows the President to detain or deport nationals of an enemy nation.
The Trump administration has been using it to deport Venezuelans accused of gang affiliation to be imprisoned in El Salvador, without proof or a hearing. The high court is allowing the deportations under this law to continue, so long as individuals are given due process.
“The Enemy Aliens Act was a series of acts that started in 1798, so almost since the beginning of the founding of our country,” said USC Dornsife professor Susan Kamei.
Kamei explained the act’s origins, which date back to John Adams’ administration.
“It was a wartime authority to give the President the ability to detain or deport both citizens who are aliens in our country, as well as those of that ancestry, once a country has been declared an enemy,” Kamei said.
The act was invoked again during World War I and World War II. Kamei notes that this is the only time the act has been in place while the U.S. is not at war.
“What the Trump administration has done is try to invoke this without there being a congressional declaration of war and on the basis of a threat of an incursion,” Kamei said. “Their basis is that we don’t need to be actively attacked by a foreign government [and] that the Venezuelan gangs represent a national security threat.”
Critics of the President suggest the administration’s recent actions harken to a dark chapter in U.S. history. In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, authorizing the incarceration of Japanese Americans. While Franklin’s order allowed this, the principles of the Alien Enemies Act indirectly paved the way.
“Two-thirds of those persons of Japanese ancestry who were removed from their homes, from the military exclusion zones on the west coast and held in temporary and then long-term detention facilities until after the end of World War II were American-born citizens,” Kamei said.
For her, this history is personal. Kamei’s parents and grandparents were taken to camps with only the belongings they could carry. Her mother and maternal grandparents were taken to a temporary camp at Santa Anita race track, then later to Heart Mountain in Wyoming. Kamei’s father and paternal grandparents were taken to Poston Internment Camp in Arizona.
“They didn’t know what was going to happen to them, when they were going to be taken again by train, and ultimately to Wyoming. But there were so many rumors. They knew what was happening in Europe with the Nazi death camps,” Kamei said. “There was widespread fear because they didn’t know...they could just be taken out into the desert and shot or left to starve, they had no idea.”
She acknowledges that similar fears exist for many families today.
“The individuals and the families that right now are fearing that they could be targeted or that they could be deported [are] waiting for that shoe to drop. Not knowing if walking on the sidewalk or showing up at school or at work is going to [put them] at risk,” Kamei said.
The Supreme Court ruled on the Alien Enemies Act 5 to 4, split mostly along ideological lines.