The Alien and Sedition Acts was enacted by John Adams’s Federalist administration in preparation for a war that didn’t actually happen.

What is the Alien Enemies Act? It's an 18th-century law that allows the president to detain or deport immigrants from countries the U.S. is at war with. In more than 225 years, the law had been invoked just three times,

A federal judge has ruled that President Trump's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged migrant gang members is lawful, in contrast to two other judges.

The Alien Enemies Act of 1798 is not merely a relic of a darker era in American history—it is a live wire capable of short-circuiting rights protected by US constitution. The act’s recent invocation by the Trump administration to summarily detain and forcibly disappear Venezuelan men into a notorious prison in El Salvador has pushed the US to the brink of a constitutional crisis.