- Trump described an 'immigration invasion' in op-ed
- He promised to carry out a “record-breaking deportation operation.”
- Would use the Alien Enemies Act to remove 'suspected gang members'
Former President Donald Trump is vowing to shift “enormous proportions” of law enforcement to immigration enforcement — and said he will use a federalist era to remove suspected gang members and drug dealers from the country.
Trump, who ran his 2016 campaign on a promise to build a border wall and a pledge to kick out Mexican “rapists,” touted his latest hardline proposals in an op-ed in the United States. Des Moines Register.
Trump has ramped up his events there in the final weeks before the Iowa Caucuses while he was ahead in the polls.
Trump referred to record numbers of border crossings, which affected nearly 250,000 people in November, characterizing it as an “invasion.”
President Donald Trump said he would use the 18th century Alien Enemies Act to remove suspected gang members from the country, calling the record flow of migrants an 'invasion'
“We ended catch-and-release and removed well over a million illegal aliens during my first term. “I negotiated unprecedented agreements with Central American countries and brokered 'Remain in Mexico' to stem the flow of migrants to our border,” Trump wrote.
He said President Biden “canceled” the border wall and “torn my asylum bans.”
(Biden recently angry some of his allies as his administration moved forward with plans to build new sections of the border wall on the southern border).
Trump also pointed to the 18th century Alien Enemies Act, passed as part of the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts, and said he would rely on the authority to kick out suspected gang members.
It was the same revised law that Franklin Delano Roosevelt used during World War II to create executive orders to deport and secure citizens of Germany, Japan and Italy while they were at war with the US.
The Texas National Guard detains migrants crossing the Rio Grande River to seek humanitarian asylum before crossing the border into the United States in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on January 2, 2024. Trump pointed to 250,000 crossing attempts in November
Trump said he would use the Alien Enemies Act, a law that FDR used in a revised form against Japanese, German and Italian citizens during World War II
(Roosevelt relied on various authorities for the forced internment of Japanese Americans, for which Congress apologized in 1988 and President Reagan signed a law providing compensation to the victims).
The revised 1918 statute is for “any time war is declared between the United States and a foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion is committed.”
It was not clear that its use would be deemed constitutional when the US was not at war with the migrants' home countries.
“The millions of illegal aliens brought in under Biden will require a record number of removals. This is just common sense,” Trump wrote.
“I will also invoke the Alien Enemies Act to remove known or suspected gang members, drug dealers or cartel members from the United States. And we will use Title 42 to finally end the child trafficking crisis,” Trump added.
Trump's blasts in the leading Iowa newspaper come as Biden prepares to ramp up his own campaign, with a planned speech on Saturday in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, where his campaign says he will call Trump a threat to democracy.
His latest harsh speech comes after he was criticized for paraphrasing Hitler by saying migrants were “poisoning the blood of our country.”