#1645 The Resurrection of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798

Listening to America

History, Politics, Unitedstates, Society & Culture, American

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 31 March 2025

⏱️ 58 minutes

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Summary

Clay is joined by one of his favorite guests and favorite people, historian Joe Ellis of Vermont. The discussion is about the Trump administration’s attempt to pull the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 out of the historical dust and apply it to what it regards as undesirable foreigners in the United States. Two Alien acts, the Sedition Act, and the Naturalization Act were passed by a Federalist Congress during a war scare in 1798, the so-called Quasi War. The Alien Enemies Act permitted the president to deport any foreign person he regarded as a national security threat, without due process, without a hearing public or private, and without the benefit of counsel. In the presidential campaign of 2024 Donald Trump declared that he would be invoking the Alien Enemies Act, which is still on the books. He has begun to deport what he regards as Venezuelan gang members and other undesirables (as he sees them). The federal courts now will have to determine if the Alien Enemies Act is a legal tool in President Trump’s campaign to control immigration to the United States. Joe Ellis provides vital and essential historical context for this vexed issue. This interview was recorded on 22 March 2025.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, everyone, and welcome to this podcast this week.
0:04.2	Joe Ellis and I talking about the alien and sedition laws and the naturalization law of 1798.
0:12.4	And you would think, well, what are we doing?
0:13.8	Just talking about some ancient thing in American legal history?
0:19.4	No, no, no.
0:20.7	Because as you know, Donald Trump has invoked the
0:24.2	alien enemy's law, which is still on the books. The sedition law of 1798 sunsetted in 1800. The alien
0:31.8	friend's law of 1798 sunsetted in 1800. The naturalization law has long since been rescinded. So the one that
0:41.9	was still on the books, that remains on the books, and if a law is on the books, you can invoke it.
0:48.5	You shouldn't, because that was 200 years ago in a very different America. But you can. You have every legal right to invoke a law whenever it was passed,
0:58.1	as long as it hasn't been repealed, rescinded,
1:00.2	or amended out of its purposes.
1:03.9	And so the alien enemy's law continues to exist.
1:07.9	It's been updated a couple of times.
1:09.6	It was used by Woodrow Wilson. In the
1:13.8	aftermath of World War I, it was used by FDR with respect to Japanese internment camps.
1:21.5	It was invoked by Harry S. Truman. Trump is not the first person to go back to the Alien Enemies Act,
1:32.6	so we shouldn't confuse ourselves about that. However, the law was passed during a war scare.
1:42.8	Whenever a law is passed during a war scare,
1:45.3	we should think very carefully about whether we want
1:48.5	to keep it on the books.
1:51.4	Think of the Patriot Act.
	...

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