The Alien Enemies Act

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NPR

Society & Culture, History, Documentary

4.7 • 15K Ratings

🗓️ 17 April 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In March 2025, President Trump issued an executive order invoking a centuries-old law: the Alien Enemies Act. The Act allows a president to detain or deport citizens of foreign adversaries to the United States, but only in the case of a "declared war" or "invasion." Now, the Trump administration and the courts are locked in a battle over whether the president's use of the Act, under which people have already been deported, is legal. Today on the show: where the Alien Enemies Act came from, how presidents have used it before, and what that tells us about what's to come.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This message comes from 48 hours.
0:02.5	Want more 48 hours?
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0:11.8	Listen for original reporting and exclusive insights.
0:14.9	Follow and listen wherever you get your podcasts.
0:19.0	At 5.45 p.m. Eastern Time on Saturday, March 15th, 2025, a plane took off from
0:27.0	Harlingen, Texas. As that plane flew south, turning towards Honduras, news alerts went off
0:34.3	in the United States. President Trump invoked a wartime law that gives him sweeping deportation powers.
0:41.0	It's called the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
0:44.3	It gives president's power to order the rapid detention and deportation of non-citizens older than 14.
0:51.0	It is clear the U.S. is not in a war right now.
0:53.9	But in his order, Trump described
0:56.0	Venezuela's Thren de Arago, a prison gang, as a force invading the U.S. Many view this move as an
1:02.0	attempt by the Trump administration to accelerate deportations. I think an old law is a virtue, not a vice.
1:08.5	The ACLU sued to stop these deportations,
1:13.1	and a federal judge agreed to temporary block them.
1:15.8	Despite this, a plane landed in El Salvador,
1:19.0	carrying hundreds of deportees from the United States.
1:25.1	It's unclear if the deportations violated a judicial order.
1:28.3	President Trump asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
1:33.1	He wanted the injunction, which a federal judge put on his ability to use the Alien Enemies Act, to be lifted.
1:35.4	The Supreme Court ended up issuing a narrow procedural ruling, lifting the order,
	...

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