On March 15th, 2025, President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, specifically targeting foreign nationals from Venezuela who are alleged members of the Trend de Aragua criminal organization. The Alien Enemies Act was last used to intern 31,000 Japanese, German, and Italian nationals during WWII. As the Japanese American community knows, the scope was expanded to include United States citizens through Executive Order 9066 leading to the incarceration of over 125,000 people of Japanese ancestry. We fear that the Venezuelan immigrant community is now being similarly targeted through the unlawful use and expansion of the Alien Enemies Act.
This is the fourth invocation of the Alien Enemies Act in the history of the United States, however, this is the only time outside of wartime. Under the newly signed EO “Invocation of the Alien Enemies Act Regarding the Invasion of The United States by Tren De Aragua”, any Venezuelan national over the age of 14, who is alleged to have ties to the Tren de Aragua gang is subject to be arrested, detained, and deported regardless of their immigration status. Not only is this an unlawful use of the Alien Enemies Act, outside the scope of wartime, but is overly broad and can be used to target individuals with no proven connection to Tren de Agua except through their Venezuelan citizenship.
The Federal District Court immediately intervened and issued a temporary restraining order to block the deportation of any individuals under the authority of this executive order and called for a plane carrying deportees to immediately return to the United States. In what would be especially egregious behavior, the Trump administration may have blatantly ignored the judge’s orders and carried out deportations on Saturday under the authority of the Alien Enemies Act.
The Trump administration’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act is unconstitutional and continues the deeply racist and xenophobic legacy of Japanese American incarceration during WWII. The danger of the Alien Enemies Acts is the power granted to the President to circumvent the constitutional rights to due process for immigrants under the guise of national security. As it was revealed after the war, Japanese Americans posed no security threat, and many Japanese Americans served with distinction to defeat the Axis powers, even as their families remained imprisoned behind barbed wire in American concentration camps.
We call for the administration to comply fully with the temporary restraining order and halt any deportations under the proposed authority of the Alien Enemies Act. The alleged blatant disregard for Judge Boasberg’s orders to turn the plane carrying deportees around cannot be tolerated in a nation of laws. The Alien Enemies Act cannot be invoked without a declaration of war, an act that only Congress can take. Congress can and should pass the Neighbors Not Enemies Act, which would repeal the Alien Enemies Act to ensure that the President cannot abuse the law and further desecrate our Constitution.