ICYMI: Rep. Omar Pens Op-ed with Former Rep. Mike Honda on Trump’s Use of the Alien Enemies Act
WASHINGTON– In a new op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle by Rep. Ilhan Omar and former Rep. Mike Honda, they expose how Trump is weaponizing Alien Enemies Act to carry out indiscriminate deportations and lay the groundwork for further attacks on immigrant communities. Rep. Omar has long warned about this risk. She introduced the Neighbors Not Enemies Act to repeal this law, understanding the dangers it poses in the hands of someone like Donald Trump.
The article can be found here.
Full article below:
Trump is now warping the same legal mechanism that led to Japanese American incarceration
The president just invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 — and he isn’t even using it as the law was intended.
By Mike Honda and Ilhan Omar
President Donald Trump just invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. This is the first time in our nation’s history that this xenophobic law has been invoked outside of war. Now, Trump is trying to use this act, unlawfully, to justify indiscriminate detention and deportation of people without any oversight or recourse.
The last time the Alien Enemies Act was invoked, it was used to incarcerate tens of thousands of Japanese, German and Italian immigrants during World War II — setting into motion one of the most shameful chapters in American history. The act’s detention scheme, already a mass violation of rights, paved the way for Executive Order 9066 and the imprisonment of over 110,000 innocent American civilians, many of them citizens, based solely on their ancestry.
As someone who was incarcerated as an infant at the Camp Amache concentration camp in Colorado (Former Rep. Mike Honda, D-Silicon Valley) and as a refugee and the first Somali American member of Congress (Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.), we know how incarceration policies can shatter and separate families under the guise of national security, and also unjustly labeled Americans as “dangerous” based on where they or their parents had been born. Having your allegiance to the country you call home questioned inflicts an unspeakable pain that remains for so many families who endured this terror.
While it’s been over 80 years since this law was last invoked, its revival under Trump proves his administration has learned nothing from that dark chapter in our history.
Moreover, Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act isn’t just morally abhorrent, it is a huge legal stretch.
The law was written for times of declared war or an armed attack against the United States. Its plain text conditions its use for “whenever there is a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation or government.”
Trump’s justification for using the act — that transnational criminal gangs are foreign governments at war with the United States or that migration from Venezuela constitutes an invasion by a foreign nation — is beyond any reasonable interpretation of the law and of reality.
The act’s authority is already an unacceptable violation of civil and human rights even in times of war — to invoke it now, in peacetime and based on lies, is a travesty.
While Trump is raising the Alien Enemies Act under the guise of targeting transnational criminal gangs, that’s not how the Alien Enemies Act works. The law targets people based on their nationality, not based on their behavior. It specifically allows, after a declaration of war or an invasion, for “all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being of the age of fourteen years and upward, who shall be within the United States and not actually naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies.” That the Trump administration is not even alleging that there is a “hostile nation or government” in this case represents an unprecedented — and illegal — expansion of the already notorious authorities the law provides.
When the Trump administration tells you this is about stopping cartels, please do not fall for the lies.
People with proven connections to violent transnational gangs can already be deported. Under current immigration laws, membership in terrorist organizations or a conviction in several categories of crimes are grounds for deportation.
The Alien Enemies Act doesn’t allow for the targeting of one gang, it applies to all Venezuelans. This includes green card holders. It includes people who are themselves victims of cartels and gangs.
We need to be clear about what this could mean for the thousands of families who could have their lives upended. Parents could be separated from the ones they love and the country they love. Young people will have their futures and dreams torn apart. It is hard to imagine a more essential betrayal of our founding values than that.
America is too great to fall prey to Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda — we need to employ basic humanity in our immigration system.
The Neighbors Not Enemies Act was introduced by Rep. Ilhan Omar and Sen. Mazie Hirono in 2020 to repeal this draconian law because we understood the risk it poses in the hands of someone like Donald Trump.
The Neighbors Not Enemies Act repeals a harmful law and ensures no one is deported based on fear and prejudice and without due process. We cannot allow antiquated laws, particularly those with a legacy as shameful as this one, to continue enabling discriminatory practices that harm immigrant communities.
The U.S. government issued formal apologies and reparations to Japanese American victims of imprisonment under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. However, the underlying legal authority that allowed the incarceration was never repealed, perhaps because people wrongly believed that our national contrition over what happened meant the law would never be abused again. It is stunning that we are once again in this position.
It will take all of us to end this xenophobic law once and for all.
Former Rep. Mike Honda, a third-generation Japanese American, represented Silicon Valley in the House of Representatives for 16 years. Rep. Ilhan Omar represents Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District.
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