Op-ed: Trump deploys the Alien Enemies Act

On Jan. 20, President Trump issued an executive order starkly reminding us that international criminal cartels “have engaged in a campaign of violence and terror throughout the Western Hemisphere that has … flooded the [U.S.] with deadly drugs, violent criminals, and vicious gangs” and that the cartels “functionally control, through a campaign of assassination, terror, rape and brute force nearly all illegal traffic across” our southern border.

A year and a half ago, Mr. Trump’s campaign promised the American people that if elected, he would “invoke the Alien Enemies Act to remove all known or suspected gang members, drug dealers or Cartel Members from the U.S.” On Jan. 20, Mr. Trump took the first step in fulfilling that promise.

What is the Alien Enemies Act? Enacted in 1798, the AEA was designed to prepare us for a feared invasion by France, then in the throes of the French Revolution. Unlike the other infamous “Alien and Sedition Acts,” the AEA received wide bipartisan support, including from Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, and is still good law. It provides that when the U.S. is in a declared war or when “any invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the [U.S.] by any foreign nation or government,” all nationals of the hostile nation at least 14 years old (unless having become naturalized citizens) may be summarily “apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies” at the president’s discretion. The statutory procedures and rights normally afforded to aliens, which would make the expeditious removal of large numbers of enemy aliens impossible, do not apply to enemy aliens subject to the AEA. The law has been employed most notably during the War of 1812 and during World Wars I and II and has repeatedly passed muster at the Supreme Court.

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[Read the rest at the Washington Times.]