Treating aliens as enemies

President Trump has added a controversial chapter to the sordid history of an obscure law, says Daniel Tichenor

- Daniel Tichenor

President Donald Trump often promised during his 2024 presidential campaign, on 15 March 2025, he invoked an obscure 18th-century law called the Alien Enemies Act to justify deporting 137 Venezuelans he says are associated with a Venezuelan gang.

A federal judge swiftly blocked the deportations and ordered the planes carrying Venezuelans heading to El Salvador to return. But the White House, which has appealed the ruling, said that the court order came too late on a Saturday night, after it had already sent the Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador.

The Justice Department has appealed the federal judge's decision and is arguing that the en-route planes carrying the immigrants to El Salvador were outside of the judge's jurisdiction.

"Oopsie. Too late," Nayib Bukele, president of El Salvador, posted on the social media platform X on March 16, in a message that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio reposted.

Legal analysts were trying to determine where the planes carrying the Venezuelans were shortly before 7 p.m. on March 15, when the judge issued the order stopping their removal, in an attempt to determine if the Trump administration had violated the judge's order.

The Alien Enemies Act empowers presidents to apprehend and remove foreign nationals from countries that are at war with the United States. U.S. presidents have issued executive proclamations and invoked this law three times: during the War of 1812, World War I and World War II. All three instances followed Congress declaring war.

Why bother dusting off a 227-year-old law?