Trump to invoke wartime Alien Enemies Act from 1798 to carry out deportations to Guantanamo

President Trump is planning to invoke a wartime law from 1798 as soon as Friday to authorize the summary deportation of some migrants, including to Guantanamo Bay, escalating his government-wide immigration crackdown, multiple U.S. officials familiar with the plan told CBS News.

The 227-year-old law in question, known as the Alien Enemies Act, gives presidents the extraordinary power to order the arrest, detention and deportation of noncitizens who are 14 years or older and come from countries staging an “invasion or predatory incursion” of the U.S. 

Mr. Trump is expected to cite the 18th-century statute to order the swift detention and deportation of suspected members of the Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang with prison origins that his administration has designated a foreign terrorist organization, said the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. 

Officials have made preparations to send suspected gang members to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, soon after Mr. Trump invokes the Alien Enemies Act, two of the U.S. officials said. At Mr. Trump’s direction, officials have been detaining some migrants awaiting deportation at the naval base, though the holding facilities were left empty earlier this week.

Those subject to the Alien Enemies Act would not be allowed to have a court hearing or an asylum interview since they would be processed under an emergency, wartime authority — not immigration law. Instead, they would be eligible to be detained and deported, with little to no due process, under Title 50, the section of the U.S. code housing America’s war and defense laws.

CNN first reported Mr. Trump’s plans to invoke the law as early as Friday.

The Alien Enemies Act has been invoked only a few times in U.S. history, including during World War II, when the government used to surveil and detain Italian, German and Japanese immigrants in the U.S. 

Its invocation to target migrants from countries with which the U.S. is not actively at war is almost certain to face legal challenges. 

Mr. Trump previewed his invocation of the Alien Enemies Act in an executive order issued on his first day back at the White House. It directed the secretaries of state and homeland security to plan for the potential invocation of the law and prepare facilities “necessary to expedite the removal” of those subject to it.

“By invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, I will direct our government to use the full and immense power of federal and state law enforcement to eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks bringing devastating crime to U.S. soil, including our cities and inner cities,” Mr. Trump said in his inaugural address.

CBS News reached out to representatives of the White House and the Department of Homeland Security for comment.

Camilo Montoya-Galvez

Camilo Montoya-Galvez is the immigration reporter at CBS News. Based in Washington, he covers immigration policy and politics.