By Terra Morrison, age 13
In 1798, the Alien and Sedition Acts were passed. They were drafted because the United States was having a significant naval conflict with France. With a possible war on the horizon, these acts were passed as precautionary measures in case the countries went to war. Although some of the four laws that made up the Alien and Sedition Acts were used, the Alien Enemies Act was not. But it was never revoked.
The Alien Enemies Act gives the government power to remove noncitizens from the United States without due process if there is declared war between the two countries. However, the law states that it can only be invoked during wartime to remove noncitizens who could pose a threat and are linked to an enemy nation. The act also specifies that it cannot be applied to U.S. citizens and that people must be at least 14 or older to be removed or incarcerated.
Despite not being at war, in March, President Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act. On March 15, a plane departed from Harlingen, Texas, carrying 238 Venezuelan migrants who were then imprisoned in El Salvador. Trump justified the deportation by alleging that they were Tren de Aragua (TDA) gang members who were a threat to the United States. At least 27 of the deportees did not have a deportation order against them. The evidence that was used to accuse them was tattoos that supposedly identified them as TDA members. This evidence was “unreliable” and “highly subjective,” determined investigative reporters who have looked into TDA, according to NPR’s Throughline podcast.
Critics of Trump are describing his invocation of the act as “a massive overreach” and an “abuse of executive power.” A federal judge recently said using the act against alleged gang members was illegal. The Venezuelans were returned to Venezuela in a prisoner swap in July, after four months of abuse in the Salvadoran prison.
Daniel Tichenor, a political science professor at the University of Oregon, said on Throughline, “My sense is that as the Trump team was preparing to enter office, they viewed this law and its power for presidents as a way to streamline the process of removing noncitizens. … Non-citizens have at least some due process, a possibility of having a day in court, if they face detention and removal.”
This is not the only time the Alien Enemies Act has been invoked. Although it was used during the War of 1812 and World War I, its power was used on a greater scale during World War II. Immediately after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt invoked the act, ordering the internment of 30,000 Japanese, German, and Italian noncitizens.
Two months after Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt signed an order targeting Japanese American citizens. This allowed the government to round up and forcibly relocate anyone of Japanese descent, even if they were a citizen. Roosevelt did this despite a lack of evidence that Japanese Americans were sabotaging the United States or working with Japan. By the end of the war, in 1945, approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans had been incarcerated in U.S. concentration camps, some of them for over three years.
Now, as Trump voices his plans for mass deportations and incarcerations, Japanese Americans are alarmed. Descendants of incarcerated people see the threat that the act poses to our country. Japanese Americans across the nation are working to spread awareness about the history of the Japanese American mass incarceration to make the point that this grave injustice must never happen again.
Mike Ishii, co-founder of Tsuru for Solidarity, said, “We are angry that this current administration is actually using the template of Japanese Americans’ forced removal and mass incarceration as a blueprint to target immigrants. This is a campaign of hate, and it’s going to destroy the civil society of this country.” The treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II leaves a terrible mark on the history of our nation. The use of this act threatens the core values of the United States, especially the right to due process.
Flora Ninomiya, a woman incarcerated at Camp Amache in Colorado during World War II, told ABC News, “You can’t do this again.”
