Lawmakers Seek to Repeal ‘Archaic’ Alien Enemies Act as Trump Threatens its Use

San Diego Rep. Juan Vargas joined other Democratic legislators on Thursday to reintroduce the Neighbors Not Enemies Act, intended to repeal a nearly 230-year-old law targeting immigrants.

“The Alien Enemies Act of 1798 is a draconian, wartime law that gives presidents unprecedented powers to deport immigrants without a court hearing or an asylum interview,” Vargas said in a statement.

“Now, Trump is threatening to exploit this outdated law to carry out his mass detention and deportation plans. We’ve already seen innocent families and hard-working people with no criminal record swept up in his anti-immigrant agenda. We need to pass this bill to protect the rights and due process of immigrants here in San Diego County and across the country.”

Fellow San Diego Rep. Sara Jacobs is a co-sponsor of the bill. Rep. Ilhan Omar and Sen. Mazie Hirono are co-authors of the bill. Omar and Hirono are immigrants themselves.

The legislation would repeal the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a wartime authority that allows the president to detain or deport the natives and citizens of an enemy nation. President Donald Trump is expected to try to use the law to speed up mass deportations.

“The Alien Enemies Act has been used to target immigrants based solely on their nationality, leading to shameful chapters in our history like the internment of Japanese, Italian, and German-Americans during World War II,” said Omar in a January statement.

“President Trump’s new administration is also threatening to use this law for sweeping detentions and deportations of immigrants without due process based solely on national origin.”

“In his war on immigrants, Donald Trump has made clear that he will stop at nothing to carry out mass deportations, including invoking the archaic, little known Alien Enemies Act of 1798,” added Hirono. “The Neighbors Not Enemies Act would finally repeal this draconian, xenophobic law to prevent immigrants from being deported without basic due process.”

The law was passed as part of the Alien and Sedition Acts by the Federalist Party — supporters of John Adams’ administration — to target supporters of the Democratic-Republican party, favored at that time by recently arrived immigrants.

Supporters of the Neighbors Not Enemies Act say they fear the Alien Enemies Act will be used in a similar way by the Trump administration.

The three other acts passed by the Adams administration-era legislature as part of the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Alien Friends Act, Naturalization Act and the Sedition Act, have since been repealed by Congress.

However, the Alien Enemies Act has remained on the books for more than 200 years. It allows the president to unilaterally determine how and if all foreign nationals from a specific country should be “apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed” during times of war or “imminent threat.”

The act was famously used during World War II to send Japanese Americans to internment camps.

City News Service contributed to this report.