Trump Calls on 1798 Alien Enemies Act to Deport Suspected Venezuelan Gang Members

On Saturday, President Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to mandate the immediate detention and deportation of Venezuelan migrants believed to be affiliated with the Tren de Aragua prison gang, classifying them as wartime adversaries of the U.S. government.

In his proclamation, the president asserted that the Venezuelan gang was “perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States,” meeting the legal criteria necessary to invoke the 227-year-old war authority.

This remarkable order from Mr. Trump is unprecedented in its breadth and has scant historical precedent in the United States. The referenced law, enacted just 22 years after the Declaration of Independence, addresses invasions and incursions carried out by “any foreign nation or government.”

The president instructed the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice to “apprehend, restrain, secure, and remove every” Venezuelan migrant, aged 14 or older, who is suspected to be part of Tren de Aragua and who does not possess U.S. citizenship or permanent residency.

Individuals affected by this order could face immediate arrest, detention, and deportation, without the due process protections established in U.S. immigration law, which typically provide opportunities to appear before a judge and seek asylum. Instead, they would be treated as enemy aliens and subjected to America’s wartime legal framework.

This centuries-old statute has been invoked on only a handful of occasions throughout American history, notably during World War I and World War II, when U.S. officials utilized it to monitor and detain foreign nationals from Italy, Germany, and Japan.

However, this is the first time the Alien Enemies Act has been employed to target migrants from countries with which the U.S. is not currently at war, fundamentally framing the actions of a non-state actor as an invasion or incursion against the U.S.

In his declaration, Mr. Trump claimed that Tren de Aragua is “closely aligned” with the oppressive regime of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

“(Tren de Aragua) has engaged in and continues to engage in mass illegal migration to the United States to further its objectives of harming United States citizens, undermining public safety, and supporting the Maduro regime’s goal of destabilizing democratic nations in the Americas, including the United States,” stated Mr. Trump in his proclamation.