 "Alien Enemies Act, holding camps: The emergency plans Donald Trump has for mass deportations")
Donald Trump is planning to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.
The President-elect has vowed to deport millions and stabilise the border with Mexico after record numbers of migrants crossed illegally during President Joe Biden’s administration.
Trump has said that he would use the military to do so.
“Immediately upon taking the oath of office, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history,” Trump recently said. “I will immediately ban all sanctuary cities in the United States.”
On his social media platform Truth Social, Trump amplified a recent post by a conservative activist that said the president-elect was “prepared to declare a national emergency and will use military assets to reverse the Biden invasion through a mass deportation program.”
Alongside the repost, Trump commented, “True!”
But what do we know about the emergency plans?
Let’s take a closer look:
Invoking Alien Enemies Act
Trump, during his campaign for president, repeatedly vowed to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to speed up deportations .
As per Forbes, this is an 18th Century wartime Act which allows the US government to remove from its borders citizens and those associated with countries the US is at war.
The Alien Enemies Act states that the president to direct that “all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects” of a country the US is at war with, who are male and at least 14 years old, can be “apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies.”
However, it is only applicable to those nations the US has declared war on.
It also applies to “any invasion or predatory incursion [that] is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation or government.”
Impact Shorts
More ShortsThe Act has been invoked by presidents at different times including the 1812 War, World War I and World War II.
Arguably its most famous use came during the Second World War when a number of Japanese-Americans were held in internment camps without due process.
The US Supreme Court upheld the law in 1947 in the Ludecke vs Watkins case.
It held that the US could take action against a German national regardless of the war having ended.
And with the conservatives dominating the US Supreme Court, it is extremely likely that the law, if challenged, would be ruled valid.
Critics argue that the law is outdated and point to the fact that the internment of Japanese-Americans is viewed as a stain in the US’ history.
Building camps to hold undocumented
According to The New York Times, Trump’s top immigration adviser Stephen Miller in November 2023 said funds allotted to the military would be used to construct “ vast holding facilities that would function as staging centers” for undocumented immigrants.
This, in the backdrop of their cases being heard and the government preparing to send them abroad.
The centres would be run by the Department of Homeland Security.
Trump has been announcing a cabinet featuring immigration hardliners, naming former Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting chief Tom Homan as his “border czar” and picking South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem as Department of Homeland Security Secretary,
Homan appeared at the Republican National Convention in July, telling supporters: “I got a message to the millions of illegal immigrants that Joe Biden’s released in our country: You better start packing now.”
Authorities estimate that some 11 million people are living in the United States illegally. Trump’s deportation plan is expected directly to impact around 20 million families.
Critics have slammed this plan.
“President-elect Trump’s dystopian fantasies should send a chill down everyone’s spine, whether immigrant or native-born,” Karen Tumlin, the director of the Justice Action Center, an immigrant advocacy organisation, told the newspaper. “Not only is what he is describing in all likelihood illegal, this move would be the exact opposite of the legacy of service in which my family members were proud to participate.”
Robyn Barnard, the senior director of refugee advocacy at Human Rights First, added, “Families will be torn apart, businesses left without vital employees, and our country will be left to pick up the pieces for years to come.”
Trump had also vowed to reinstate his travel ban as well as ban refugees from Gaza and anyone ‘sympathetic’ to Hamas and Muslim extremists, according to The Guardian.
The travel ban went all the way up to the US Supreme Court – which ultimately upheld a version of it.
“If you empathize with radical Islamic terrorists and extremists, you’re disqualified,” he said. “If you want to abolish the state of Israel, you’re disqualified. If you support Hamas or any ideology that’s having to do with that or any of the other really sick thoughts that go through people’s minds – very dangerous thoughts – you’re disqualified.”
He had also vowed to deport those ‘sympathetic’ to jihadists.
“In the wake of the attacks on Israel, Americans have been disgusted to see the open support for terrorists among the legions of foreign nationals on college campuses. They’re teaching your children hate,” he said. “Under the Trump administration, we will revoke the student visas of radical anti-American and antisemitic foreigners at our colleges and universities and we will send them straight back home.”
What do experts say?
They say using the Alien Enemies Act in particular would be outrageous.
Katherine Yon Ebright, counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice, told Forbes that it would be “staggering abuse” that goes against “centuries of legislative, presidential, and judicial practice.”
However, she added that it remains to be seen how the courts rule given that they tend to leave things to the president and Congress in “matters of war and peace.”
Legal scholar Steven Vladeck said that the Ludecke vs Watkins ruling stated that the courts still play a role in deciding whether the Alien Enemies Act can be used against particular foreign nationals,.
This, he said, could stop Trump from “extrajudicial” action against migrants.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director at the American Immigration Council, told BBC that an increase in ‘collateral arrests’ is likely.
“Let’s say they go after somebody with a criminal record, and that person lives in a house with four other [undocumented] people,” Reichlin-Melnick said. “We saw with the first Trump administration, they’ll arrest those people as well.”
“I don’t think that being a person with no criminal record [who] pays taxes protects anybody,” he added. “One of the first things that Trump will do is get rid of the Biden administration’s enforcement priorities. And we’ve seen that when there are no priorities, they will go after whoever are the easiest targets.”
Trump’s opponents are gearing up for battle as well.
California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, a fierce critic of Trump, on called for lawmakers to convene a special session ahead of another Trump presidency to safeguard the state’s progressive policies.
Meanwhile, attorneys general in blue states across the country announced they would act against Trump’s policies.
During Trump’s first presidency, Democratic attorneys general came together to file suits over immigration, Trump’s travel ban for residents of Muslim countries, the environment, internet regulation and other topics.
The challenges typically have mixed records. But Trump has one possible advantage this time around. He was aggressive in nominating conservative jurists to federal courts at all levels, including the US Supreme Court.
While the US government has struggled for years to manage its southern border with Mexico, Trump has super-charged concerns by claiming an “invasion” is underway by migrants he says will rape and murder Americans.
During his campaign, Trump repeatedly railed against undocumented immigrants, employing incendiary rhetoric about foreigners who “poison the blood” of the United States and misleading his audiences about immigration statistics and policy.
The number of US border patrol encounters with migrants crossing from Mexico illegally is now about the same as in 2020, the last year of Trump’s first term, after peaking at a record 250,000 for the month of December 2023.
With inputs from agencies
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