Donald Trump Invokes Controversial 1700s Wartime Law Used to Justify Japanese Internment Camps

President Donald Trump has invoked a 227-year-old wartime law in order to help carry out mass detainments and deportations in the United States, fulfilling a controversial 2024 campaign promise.

On Saturday, March 15, Trump announced that he will invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a widely condemned immigration law that gives the president sweeping powers to bypass equal protection and due process while targeting foreign citizens.

When it has been invoked, it has led to human rights crises that history now looks down upon — but the law was never formally repealed by Congress.

The directive specifically targets members of the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua, and authorizes removal of all Venezuelan citizens ages 14 and older who are not U.S. citizens or “lawful” permanent residents and are affiliated to Tren de Aragua.

Trump previously vowed to use the Alien Enemies Act after visiting Aurora, Colo., on Oct. 11, when he delivered a headline-making campaign speech disparaging immigrants.

Following the campaign rally, he posted on social media, “We are now known, all throughout the world, as OCCUPIED AMERICA…But to everyone here in Colorado and all across our nation, I make you this vow: November 5th, 2024 will be LIBERATION DAY in America.”

Referencing a few prominent instances where American people were killed by non-citizens, Trump said he “will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail or kick them the hell OUT OF OUR COUNTRY.”

Without naming any target in particular, the former president continued by saying, “To expedite removals of this savage gang, I will invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to target and dismantle every migrant criminal network operating on American Soil.”

He then vaguely accused his 2024 election opponent, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, of inflicting “violence and terror,” falsely painting her as the one responsible for Joe Biden‘s U.S. border policy and a years-long rise in illegal border crossings.

The Alien Enemies Act of 1798 is best remembered as the law that allowed Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt to place Japanese, Italian and German immigrants into internment camps during World War II, whether or not they were affiliated with military actions from their countries of origin.

“The Alien Enemies Act and complementing authorities have allowed presidents to target people on the basis of their identity, not their conduct or the threat they pose to national security,” wrote Katherine Yon Ebright, a national security expert for the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice, in October.

“In 1988, when Congress apologized and provided reparations for Japanese internment, it acknowledged that the policy was rooted in ‘racial prejudice’ and ‘wartime hysteria,’ not valid security concerns,” she continued in her article, which centered around the dangers of the overly broad 18th-century law. “Congress would later describe Italian internment as a ‘fundamental injustice,’ and the Department of Justice would recognize that German noncitizens had been targeted ‘based on their ancestry.’ “

Though the Alien Enemies Act is intended to be used only in wartime, and apply only when official governments have threatened military action, a president could conceivably weaponize the law to apply to people hailing from any country they deem to be “invading” the U.S. — which is how Trump has described several nations whose residents have sought refuge in the States.

People familiar with the Trump campaign’s early policy deliberations previously told Rolling Stone that he came up with a “very convoluted and crazy” theory for how he can abuse the law to justify mass deportations, even if the U.S. is not at war with a foreign government.

Trump has long been known for spouting anti-immigration rhetoric, but his new mass deportation program — helmed by “border czar” Tom Homan — has sparked concern about the safety of immigrants and people of color who are perceived to be in the country illegally.

At the Aurora campaign rally in October, local journalist Kyle Clark reported that, while discussing migrant crime, Trump said, “We have to live with these animals. But we won’t live with them for long.” Immediately after, a supporter in the crowd shouted, “Kill them!”

Also at the event, Trump immigration adviser Stephen Miller — a White nationalist whose organization America First Legal was initially listed on the advisory board of Project 2025 — said that under Trump, the United States will return to being a country of “only Americans,” even though the nation is largely composed of immigrants and their descendants.

Miller has since been named Trump’s homeland security adviser and the deputy White House chief of staff for policy.