Don't Use the Alien Enemies Act on Alien Friends

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP claims that the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 grants him the power to deport certain Venezuelan-born aliens without due process, based on the mere allegation of membership in a criminal street gang.

- Damon Root

But the text of the Alien Enemies Act does not allow the president to do anything of the sort. “Whenever there shall be a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion shall be perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States, by any foreign nation or government,” the act states, the president may direct the “removal” of “all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being males of the age of fourteen years and upwards, who shall be within the United States, and not actually naturalized.”