The wording of “An Act Respecting Alien Enemies,” which President John Adams never actually used, stated that during any “declared war” or if there was a “perpetrated, attempted, or threatened” invasion or “predatory incursion” by “any foreign nation or government” the U.S. president could “apprehend” and “remove” any “natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government” 14 years old or older who were not naturalized U.S. citizens (via the National Archives).
The Alien and Sedition Acts, especially the Sedition Act, didn’t go over well at the time and have continued to draw fire from historians, per American Experience. Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian Joseph J. Ellis, in an article in American Heritage magazine, called the statutes “infamous” and Adams’ backing of them “the biggest blunder” of his presidency. The original intention of the Alien Act was aimed at the many newly arrived French immigrants who supported Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican Party. During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt used it to detain Japanese, Germans, and Italians living in the U.S., per NBC News. But Trump’s proposed use of the long-dormant act would be a radical take on the 200+ year-old statute.
