Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar reintroduced a bill on Tuesday to repeal the 223-year-old Alien Enemies Act.
Called the Neighbors Not Enemies Act, Omar’s bill would repeal the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a law that was part of the “Alien and Sedition Acts,” a set of four bills used to target immigrants and non-citizens during times of war. The Alien Enemies Act allows the president to determine how and if foreign nationals from a specific country should be “apprehended, restrained, secured and removed” from the U.S. and has been used in multiple occasions throughout American history, including as a justification for Japanese internment camps during World War II.
“No one should be targeted based solely on their religion, ethnicity or national origin. This xenophobic law is dangerous and must be taken off the books,” Omar said.
Omar first introduced the bill in January of 2020, when it was referred to the House Judiciary Committee. It never received a vote on the House floor.
The travel ban
Why get rid of a law that’s been in place since the John Adams administration? Omar had in mind a more recent president: Trump. Specifically, Omar pinpointed his 2017 ban on travel to the U.S. by nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries.
[image_credit]Photo by Leon Perskie[/image_credit][image_caption]Franklin D. Roosevelt[/image_caption]
The State of Hawaii challenged the ban by preventing the enforcement of Trump’s order, and the Trump administration sued, asking the Supreme Court to hear the case. The Supreme Court upheld the travel ban in a 5-to-4 vote, saying that the president’s power to secure the country’s borders was not undermined by Trump’s “history of incendiary statements” about the dangers he said Muslims pose to the U.S.
The court’s ruling was based on the president’s power under a different law, but still, Omar cited Trump’s rhetoric about the ban in explaining the need to repeal the Alien Enemies Act. “This outdated law allows the president to detain and deport immigrants based solely on their nationality,” Omar said. “It was used to justify Japanese American internment, and the Muslim Ban by the Trump administration.”
A troubled history
The Alien Enemies Act was part of a package of bills signed into law by President John Adams. Collectively, this group of bills was known as the Alien and Sedition Acts. These laws were passed when the U.S. was on the brink of war with France. Members of the Federalist party feared that noncitizens in the U.S. would sympathize or side with the French during the war.
[image_credit]Painting by Gilbert Stuart[/image_credit][image_caption]President John Adams[/image_caption]
By 1802, all of the Alien and Sedition Acts had expired or been repealed, except for the Alien Enemies Act. In subsequent years, Congress has only expanded the reach of the act. For example, in 1918 Congress amended the act to include women.
On December 7, 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt used the Alien Enemies Act to issue presidential proclamations to “apprehend, retrain, secure and remove” Japanese, German and Italian non-citizens in response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
The next year, Roosevelt signed an executive order authorizing the U.S. secretary of war to create military zones within the country, clearing the way for the incarceration of Japanese Americans during the war. Of the estimated 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry who were held in internment camps, 62% were American citizens.
New York’s Ellis Island, a major point of entry for European immigrants at the time, continued to incarcerate ethnic Germans after the war. In 1948 the Supreme Court ruled to release a German man who had been detained since 1941, but found that the Alien Enemies Act allowed people to be detained beyond the time hostilities ended, until a treaty was signed with the hostile nation, in this case Germany.
Slim chance of repeal
In 2020, Rep. Omar’s first iteration of the Neighbors Not Enemies Act did not have much of a chance against the Trump White House. Even if it does get a vote in the House this year, and even if it passes, it’s highly unlikely the bill will get a vote in the 50-50 Senate, where legislation has already dragged at a snail’s pace this year.
The slim chance of repealing the Alien Enemies Act hasn’t stopped Omar, though.
“This outdated law allows the president to detain and deport immigrants based solely on their nationality,” she said. “It was used to justify Japanese American internment, and the Muslim Ban by the Trump administration. We must close all policy loopholes to prevent more pain to be inflicted on our communities. It’s way past time we put this hateful law in the dustbin of history where it belongs.”
Rep. Omar wants this law repealed so the law is not applied to her and the AOC Squad since they are enemies of these United States. She knows a citizen cannot be expelled solely based on religion, race or country of origin.
“the AOC Squad since they are enemies of these United States”
Well it’s not like she stormed the Capitol or asked others to do it for her.
Now, those folks are clearly enemies of these United States.
She also knows that a citizen can be “expelled” only in very unusual circumstances, which circumstances do not include expressing political opinions the right-wing doesn’t like. She is also smart enough to know that she is the only member of the “AOC Squad” who was not born in the United States. Funny, foreign-sounding names notwithstanding, they are native-born citizens and may not constitutionally be removed from this country.
But she’s an enemy of these United States! Did she encourage her followers to storm the Capitol to stop a constitutional function? Does she believe that the results of the last election will be overturned by a pillow salesman sometime in August?
Oh please. what does “enemy of the United States” even mean? Last I checked, Representative Omar has been doing her job proudly serving her constituents here in Minnesota.
As other commentators have noted, she hasn’t encouraged people to insurrection, or promoted any big lies. Her campaign website has pretty standard Democratic goals- preventing gun violence, expanded healthcare coverage, LGBTQIA+ rights….
I’ve noticed an uptick in fact free commenting here at Minnpost. it’s disappointing.
Enemy of the United States? You are thinking of Donald Trump and the other terrorist supporters of the January 6th insurrection.
In any event, Omar is now a citizen and AOC and the rest of the squad were born American citizens, so it wouldn’t apply to them anyway.
how are omar and the rest” enemies of the state?” because don the con labeled them as such?
Repeal a law because she disapproves of the application by Trump?
Classic closing the barn door after the fact.
Well, sometimes you don’t know a law is bad until you have a corrupt criminal like Donald Trump applying it.
As always, the critical problem here was that Trump’s “travel ban” was struck down by every lower court until he appealed it to his democratically-illegitimate 5 man “conservative” majority on the Supreme Court, which issued the ruling upholding what was obviously an unconstitutional order by Trumpolini. As much as our “conservatives” might disagree, one can’t be “at war” with a religious ideology, as Trump blathered; that’s incoherent.
As for repealing selected aspects of the dangerously vast scope of presidential powers, Omar is right to be alarmed, because now that we have had a mentally unbalanced, unqualified conman as “president” (as a result of our antiquated anti-democratic 18th Century constitution and failed citizenry), we cannot run the risk of giving such a sadistic authoritarian figure such unbridled power again, especially given the illegitimate “conservative” super-majority now on the Supreme Court.
Like the unbridled power that the law gave to Franklin Roosevelt leading to the imprisonment of US citizens of Japanese descent without due process. Or other actions of politicians which capitalize on the fears of the US populace.
In other words, Paul, it sounds like you agree with Omar’s position. Bipartisanship!
And (unfortunately) the scope of presidential powers has vastly expanded since the days of FDR. Hence, after seeing the rise of an anti-democratic menace like Trumpolini, it is even more imperative that they be reined in.
Nailed it.
Or are we supposed to recoil in horror at the idea of criticizing a Democratic President?
One would hope she’d be more focused on the plight of her constituents. They seem to be very low on her list unless an election is coming up.
As NOT evidenced by her 39% point margin of victory in 2020.
She did and some people unfairly target her. However research also showed when asking people in other areas of MN why they didn’t vote Dem, they named her as one of the reasons they felt the Dem party was off the rails.
I will give her credit though for lest hyperbole this year.
Yes, I’m sure those Minnesotans did say that, while also being blithely unconcerned about whether the plethora of Repub characters such as Louie Gomert and Matt Gaetz are “off the rails”. And now a new level of “conservative” crackpots like Marjorie Taylor Greene.
All these Minnesotans are really showing is their willing ingestion of the daily script on the TV soap opera called “Fox News”. But we are stuck with it, that’s for sure.
There certainly are places where Greenes and Gaetzes are as damaging to the Republicans as Omar is to the Democrats.
Unfortunately, those are not the districts electing these types to Congress.
Well, there are some people in those districts that are turned off, but there are so red or so blue that they still get elected. Omar could afford a massive drop-off in votes – the biggest in the country – but still win because the district is so Democratic.
Yes and no. Her percentage was high, but also no Democratic candidate in the entire country had a bigger dropoff in votes from Biden than Omar did.
Omar completely has everyone fooled here. Trump’s travel ban was NOT a Muslim travel ban. That is a proven fallacy and actually was followed by what Obama did – and none on the left nor the media cared Obama did it.
Just because Trump did something does not necessarily mean it’s pathetic. If anything, people seem to give Omar passes time and again for her proven hate filled rhetoric.
Right, it wasn’t a “Muslim ban” it was just a ban on travel for residents of countries where the vast majority of citizens are Muslims. You’re splitting a mighty fine hair in your rush to defend Trump, and attack Representative Omar. Clearly the commentators and constituents are all too stupid to see the 8-D chess that Rep. Omar is playing, rather than looking at her actual actions as a U.S. representative.
The ban was on persons from specific countries where terrorism was rampant. There were plenty of countries where Islam predominates and whose citizens were not banned from the US. Trump’s approach was hamhanded but then Trump isn’t known for finesse.
Terrorism was/is a red herring. As reported by the New York Times at the time: An internal report compiled by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Intelligence and Analysis Unit, however, concluded that people from the seven nations affected by the travel ban pose no increased terror risk.
Well, there are some folks who have been “fooled” here, Bob, but it’s not the liberals…
Trumpolini’s unconstitutional “travel ban” went through a few iterations as he tried to get the courts to allow it. As I said above, ultimately Trump’s democratically-illegitimate 5 man “conservative” majority on the Supreme Court was needed to approve it, and those worthies first had to decide that Trump’s (years-long) presidential campaign of vicious invective (by him!) against letting Muslims enter the country basically could not be considered as evidence of his motivation in issuing the ban, for no coherent reason. On the merits, Mr House has explained why the hair-splitting is utterly unpersuasive.
I’m missing something. How could a policy of Trump’s have been “followed by what Obama did”? Apart from the chronology issues, I don’t recall Obama ever issuing a blanket ban against entry into the country by Muslims.
“Just because Trump did something does not necessarily mean it’s pathetic.”
Let’s just say there is a strong presumption in favor of that conclusion.
Not one person in congress has more disdain for this country than Omar. Ironically she’s become quite wealthy off a land she hates.
Are you her financial advisor, or how do you know that she has become “quite wealthy”. Quite wealthy like Bezo’s, or quite wealthy more than you.
It’s hard to measure disdain in one who is such a poor political communicator as is Rep. Omar. She screws up, she clarifies or apologizes. Who knows what she thinks? Clarify, that’s what a good person does who may otherwise be a poor communicator. She should fire whoever okays her outgoing communications, or better yet hire someone.
On the other hand scores of GOP reps and senators voted to nullify the results a fair election, showing their disdain for a vital American institution — the voters. Not in their tweets but in actual votes that document and quantify their disdain.
I can see you are a willing viewer of the daily Fox News soap opera, cory, which has Omar as one of the villains-in-chief. Since your statement is entirely subjective opinion (however bitter), I will only say that at least Omar is not working to undermine popular democracy, suppress voting and game elections in her side’s favor, as today’s “conservatives” are doing in the fraudulent name of “election security”.
So you’ve chosen your side…