“The federal government says a deportation is the removal of a noncitizen from the United States for violating immigration law.”
President-elect Donald J Trump has announced that he will declare a “national emergency” and use military assets to deport illegal migrants once he is sworn-in as the 47th President of the United States, on January 20, 2025.
Trump’s newly appointed “Border Czar”, Tom Homan, provided clarity on how the military will be used to aid in the mass deportation of illegal immigrants, that the incoming administration has promised to initiate.
Homan previously served as the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during Trump’s first term. He called the military’s role as “administrative” – with the intent to put ICE agents back in the field, after as many as 70% of ICE personnel, in the past administration, have been assigned to other duties – like helping to process millions of incoming migrants.
Homan remarked, “The more non-enforcement work [the Department of Defense] can do, releases more enforcement officers on the street to look for the bad guys.”
The New York Post reported that thousands of ICE officers and agents have been assigned to process the millions of illegal migrants, who crossed the border in recent years, at their offices across the country – rather than taking to the streets to make arrests.
ICE sources have said that an estimated 60-70% of their officers are currently stuck behind desks and some of them have never made arrests on the streets for the agency. The sources said that rank-and-file personnel are ready to be “catching criminals that Biden let roam freely in the country for the last four years without consequences.”
Active-duty troops are barred from carrying out domestic law enforcement duties under the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, but the military has still historically been able to assist federal and local law enforcement agencies in other ways.
Wion News reported that Trump plans to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to target and dismantle every migrant criminal network operating on American soil. He also voiced support for classifying drug cartels as terrorist organizations and has appealed to Congress to pass laws to impose the death penalty on drug traffickers.
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Historical Precedents:
The Alien Enemies Act was not allowed to expire with the other Alien and Sedition Acts. It remains in effect as Chapter 3, Sections 21-24 of Title 50 of the United States Code.
President James Madison invoked the Act against the British nationals during the War of 1812. President Woodrow Wilson invoked the Act against nationals of the Central Powers during World War I. Even though World War I ended in 1918, the Wilson administration used the law to intern German and Austro-Hungarian immigrants until 1920.
On December 7, 1941, in response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt used the authority of the revised Alien Enemies Act to issue presidential proclamations #2525 (Alien Enemies – Japanese), #2526 (Alien Enemies – German), and #2527 (Alien Enemies – Italian), to apprehend, restrain, secure, and remove Japanese, German, and Italian non-citizens.
President Harry Truman issued proclamation #2655 on July 4, 1945. The proclamation gave the Attorney General of the United States authority regarding enemy aliens within the continental United States, to decide whether they were “dangerous to the public peace and safety of the United States,” to order them removed, and to create regulations governing their removal, citing the Alien Enemies Act.
On September 8, 1945, President Truman issued presidential proclamation #2662, which authorized the Secretary of State to remove enemy aliens that had been sent to the United States from Latin American countries.
On April 10, 1946, President Truman issued presidential proclamation #2685, which modified the previous proclamation and set a 30-day deadline for removal.
World War II ended in 1945, but the Truman administration continued to use the law for internment and deportations until 1951.
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The office of Homeland Security Statistics (OHSS) estimated that there were 11.0 million unauthorized immigrants living in the United States in 2022. Other official sources believe that the number of unauthorized immigrants living in the United States has risen to 20 million.
The Biden – Harris Administration has released millions of inadmissible aliens into the country without adequate vetting or screening.
In addition to these numbers, the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has recorded that there have been 2 million “got-aways” during the Biden Administration.
“Got-aways” are foreign nationals who enter the United States and are not apprehended or vetted. This is based on images of people caught on cameras by the Border Patrol.
There is no way to know how many potential national security threats, violent criminals, and hardened gang members are now at large in our country.
The number of Mexican nationals encountered at the northern border increased 1,000 percent in 2024 compared to 2021, showing that as resources shifted to the Southwest border crisis, many inadmissible aliens sought to take advantage of potential new vulnerabilities at the northern border.
In 2023, the Heritage Foundation reported that, “While the majority of illegal aliens seek a better life, the undeniable link between increasing illegal immigration and crime poses a significant threat. It is time for the administration to take the appropriate steps to secure our nation’s borders, safeguard our communities, and restore faith in the justice system.”
Over the past four years, the Biden – Harris Administration failed to take any meaningful measures to protect the American people from foreign nationals with criminal records, or a history of gang participation, from entering the United States without vetting or screening.
Karoline Leavitt, Press Secretary for the new administration of President Trump, announced that the president-elect “Will marshal every federal and state power necessary to institute the largest deportation operation of illegal criminals, drug dealers, and human traffickers in American history.”
The incoming Administration will be faced with a herculean task to bring peace, safety and well-being to the American people.
President-elect, Trump, received a mandate from the American voters in the 2024 presidential election. He will need to rely on that mandate to successfully carry out his campaign promise of mass deportation of illegal migrants. He also will be following in the footsteps of many previous presidents who were confronted with millions of non-citizens occupying American cities.
James Peifer
