DUBUQUE, Iowa – Former President Donald Trump said Wednesday that if re-elected, he would “immediately” invoke a federal law that would give him the unilateral power to detain and deport non-citizens who are 14 years old or older.
Speaking at a campaign stop, Trump pledged to use the Alien Enemies Act — part of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 — to target suspected gang members, drug dealers and cartel members.
“I will immediately invoke the Alien Enemy Act to remove all known or suspected gang members … drug dealers, cartel members across the United States, ending the scourge of gang violence once and for all illegal aliens,” Trump said. of a campaign stage here in front of more than 1,000 supporters.
Trump presented his proposal in a speech intended to outline what would be his second-term immigration policy, one that foreshadows a greater use of executive branch powers and law enforcement resources than President could have a bigger hand in directing.
He also told the crowd that he would also reinstate and “expand” the “travel ban” he implemented during his first term in the White House. The ban, which President Joe Biden ended on his first day in office, banned most people from seven countries, including five Muslim-majority countries, from entering the United States.
The Alien Enemy Act, intended as a wartime measure, was used mostly during World War II. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt invoked it after the bombing of Pearl Harbor order the government’s surveillance and detention of thousands of Japanese, German, and Italian nationals.
The law says a president can order noncitizens “to be detained, restrained, secured, and removed as enemy aliens” when he “makes public proclamation” that a “predatory invasion or incursion is being perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against territory of the United States by any foreign nation.”
A number of Democratic senators and civil rights groups have done so pushed for repeal of the Foreign Enemies Act.
On Wednesday, Trump said he would extend his travel ban to “deny entry to all communists and Marxists in the United States.” The Republican front-runner did not provide details or parameters for that proposal.
Trump also promised to move thousands of troops currently stationed overseas to the US-Mexico border.
“We protect other people’s borders, but we don’t protect our own,” Trump said.
He also claimed that a new Trump administration would shift “massive portions” of federal law enforcement, including the FBI, DEA and ATF, to immigration enforcement roles.
Trump also said he would commit the Navy to establishing blockades to ensure fentanyl does not enter the country via waterways.
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