Trump Just Weaponized a 225-Year-Old Law—And the Courts Are the Only Thing Standing in His Way

In the grand, messy, breathtaking experiment that is American democracy, laws aren’t just words on a page. They’re ideas. Sometimes noble, sometimes necessary, sometimes outdated relics that have outlived their original intent. And sometimes—sometimes they’re a loaded gun sitting on the president’s desk, waiting for someone reckless enough to pick it up.

Donald Trump just pulled the trigger.

As of March 15, 2025, President Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 —a law older than the White House, older than the Louisiana Purchase, older than the idea that women should have rights. It was written in an era when the most sophisticated weapon on the battlefield was a musket, and now it’s being wielded as a 21st-century cudgel to rewrite immigration policy.

But within hours of Trump’s decree, the courts struck back.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) blocking the immediate deportation of five Venezuelan individuals targeted under the act. It’s a 14-day pause, a judicial flare shot into the sky warning that the Constitution still matters. But let’s be very clear—this isn’t a victory lap. The administration isn’t stopping. They’re pushing forward, full steam ahead. If they win this legal battle, they’ll have established a precedent with no expiration date, no sunset clause, no defined limits.

The Alien Enemies Act is a 225-year-old law that has never been removed from the books because no one imagined a president would be desperate enough, reckless enough, authoritarian enough to use it like this. And yet, here we are.

This isn’t theoretical. This isn’t a law school debate question. This isn’t some dusty legal relic being trotted out for a history lesson. This is happening right now.

The Law Was Never About National Security. It Was About Power.

To understand the Alien Enemies Act, you have to go back to 1798. The United States was a scrappy, fragile republic. The ink on the Constitution had barely dried, and John Adams was looking over his shoulder at France, convinced war was imminent. So, he signed into law the Alien and Sedition Acts, a bundle of authoritarian impulses disguised as national security.

One of them, the Alien Enemies Act, granted the president sweeping authority to detain or deport male citizens of enemy nations during wartime. You’ll notice that the law doesn’t actually define what an “enemy” is. It doesn’t spell out limits. It doesn’t draw a clear boundary line between “protecting the homeland” and “exiling people you don’t like.”

And the Federalists? They swore this wasn’t about politics. They swore it wasn’t about silencing critics, purging immigrants, or rigging elections. But let’s not be naive—it was absolutely about politics.

They used these laws to arrest newspaper editors, expel immigrants, and crush opposition to their rule. And in 1800, the American people saw through it. They voted Adams out. They elected Thomas Jefferson. The Sedition Act was tossed into the trash heap of history, but the Alien Enemies Act? That one survived.

It sat there, dormant. Waiting.

For 225 years, no one touched it. Until now.

Until Trump dusted it off, held it up to the light, and thought: "I can work with this."

But the question isn’t just why he’s doing it. The question is why we’re letting him.

The Expanding Scope of Trump’s Plan

If you think this begins and ends with Venezuelans, think again. This isn’t just about a specific gang or a single country’s nationals. This is about precedent. It’s about setting the stage for what happens next.

The legal justification being floated in internal White House discussions—according to leaks—is that any group deemed a national security threat can be targeted under this law. Today, it's Tren de Aragua. Tomorrow, it could be asylum seekers. Next week, journalists. Political dissidents. Protesters.

And if you think this is just a single policy under a single administration, think again. Power doesn’t shrink once expanded—it grows. The next president, or the one after that, could point to this moment as precedent. They could say, “If Trump did it, why can’t I?”

If this policy succeeds, it won’t just affect immigrants. It will reshape the very fabric of American democracy. Once you establish that a president can unilaterally define a population as an enemy and strip them of rights, you open the door for that power to be used against anyone.

Imagine a future administration labeling climate activists as national security threats. Imagine political opponents suddenly classified as subversives. What starts as a law invoked against the most vulnerable can—and historically always does—spiral into something much larger.

We’ve seen this before. Governments don’t seize power and then voluntarily give it back. They consolidate it. They expand it. And before you know it, what was once unthinkable becomes accepted. If this law remains in place, it’s only a matter of time before it’s used again, in ways we haven’t even imagined yet.

This is how democracy crumbles—not in a dramatic instant, but through legal loopholes, executive orders, and silent shifts in power that few bother to challenge until it’s too late.

What makes this moment even more dangerous is the silence. Where are the so-called defenders of the Constitution? Where are the so-called principled conservatives who claim to value limited government? If they are not standing up now, then they are complicit in what comes next.

We are watching history repeat itself, not as a tragedy, but as a blueprint. A guide for the next leader who wants to push the envelope even further. If you give a president unchecked power once, he won’t give it back. And neither will the ones who follow him.

The Courts Have Drawn a Line—Now Congress Has to Step Up

The history of emergency powers tells us one thing—when a government claims authority under the guise of national security, it almost never relinquishes that power voluntarily. If Trump is successful in weaponizing the Alien Enemies Act, then future administrations—Democratic or Republican—will inherit a new tool for mass expulsions, detentions, or worse.

We have to ask ourselves: what happens if this precedent is used against American citizens? It sounds extreme, but history tells us that once a government starts defining "enemies" loosely enough, it inevitably broadens that definition. Could naturalized citizens be next? Could journalists critical of the government be declared “enemy sympathizers”? Could activists protesting injustice be branded as threats to the state?

We have already seen this playbook used in history. In the wake of 9/11, the Patriot Act vastly expanded government surveillance and the power of federal agencies. At the time, it was framed as a necessary security measure. But once those powers were given, they were never fully rolled back. The government’s ability to spy on its own citizens became permanent. Today, many of those provisions are still in place.

If we think Trump’s expansion of the Alien Enemies Act is only about immigrants, we are making the same mistake people made post-9/11—believing that extraordinary powers will only be used in "extraordinary" cases. History tells us otherwise.

The Political Strategy Behind the Move

There’s another factor at play here—this isn’t just about immigration or even about power. This is about fear as a political strategy.

Trump isn’t invoking this law in a vacuum. He’s using it as part of a broader 2025 strategy designed to polarize the country even further, to create an “us vs. them” dynamic where his supporters rally behind him, convinced he alone is “defending” America from a manufactured enemy.

He did it in 2016 when he launched his campaign by calling Mexican immigrants “rapists.” He did it in 2020 when he demonized Black Lives Matter protesters while refusing to condemn white supremacists in Charlottesville. And he’s doing it again—this time using the power of the federal government to turn fear into action.

The goal is not just mass deportations. The goal is political dominance through fear. The more he frames an entire part of the population as “dangerous,” the more he justifies extreme measures—and the more people accept those measures as necessary.

Congress’s Role—And Why They Won’t Act Unless Forced To

The only way to ensure this law is never used again is to repeal it entirely. But will Congress step up?

The short answer: Not unless they’re forced to.

Many politicians—on both sides—are afraid to touch immigration-related laws for fear of losing their voter base. Republicans won’t oppose Trump because they fear his base’s wrath. Many Democrats, meanwhile, worry that fighting to protect immigrants could be politically risky, even with the next election still over a year away.

So, unless the American people make it clear that this is unacceptable, nothing will change.

The courts have provided a temporary roadblock. But stopping this permanently requires action before it’s too late.

We are standing on the edge of something irreversible. If we let this stand, we will look back on this moment not as the warning sign, but as the point of no return. The gun has been loaded. The trigger has been pulled. What happens next is up to us.