The president of the United States, Donald Trump, said he planned to invoke Alien’s enemies law as part of his promise to deport millions of people in the country illegally.
The act is shown below and how it has been used in the past.
What is the act?
The alien enemies law was promulgated in 1798 to combat espionage and sabotage during tensions with France. Authorizes the president to deport, stop or place restrictions on people whose main loyalty is a foreign power and who could represent a risk of national security in times of war.
The law establishes that it can be invoked “whenever there is a declared war” or “any invasion or predatory incursion” that has been perpetrated, tried or threatened against the United States by a foreign government.
The law requires that the president proclaim the event that promoted the law to be invoked. The act remains in force until the president ends.
How has the act invoked?
The law was used in the War of 1812 between the United States and Britain and in both world wars and used to stop and deport people, as well as restrict their freedom.
President Woodrow Wilson used the law to prohibit citizens of enemies of the United States from possessing firearms and explosives, residing in certain areas and publishing certain materials, among other restrictions.
President Franklin Roosevelt used the act to justify the internment camps for people of Japanese, German and Italian ancestry during World War II. President Harry Truman continued to use the law until 1951, after hostilities had ceased in World War II, according to the Brennan Justice Center.
What have the courts said about the use of the law?
People have sued to challenge their detention or elimination, but most cases have lit questions about the citizens of the person.
The law has been confirmed as constitutional and the Supreme Court has said that it can even be used after the war. In 1948, the Supreme Court ruled that the government could deport Kurt Ludecke, a former Nazi who fell with the party, escaped a concentration camp and arrived in the United States, despite the fact that the war with Germany was over. The court said it would not have been practical to deport it while the war continued.
Although some Democratic legislators in the United States Senate and Senate reintroduced a bill in January that would repeal the Alien enemies law, pointing out its use in the internment of Americans and arguing that it violates civil and individual rights.
Who decides if the United States has been invaded?
On January 20, Trump ordered his administration to prepare to implement the alien enemies law if he decided that foreign drug cartels in the United States described as an “invasion” or “predatory raid”, criteria to invoke the law.
That will raise the question of what qualifies as an invasion and who decides.
The courts have been asked similar questions before.
California filed a lawsuit against the federal government in the 1990s claiming that he was not protecting the state of an invasion of people who illegally cross the southern border.
The court decided that determining what constitutes an invasion was a political issue for the other branches of the government. The court also said there was no manageable standard to determine when an influx of individuals reached the level of invasion.
The courts have also said that an influx of people who illegally enter the country will probably not be considered an invasion based on the writings of the founding parents, who understood the term armed hostility by another foreign state or country.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and was automatically generated from a union feed).
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