This is the Cato Daily podcast for Thursday, March 20, 2025.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The president has used the Alien Enemy's Act of 1798 to remove U.S. residents to an El Salvador prison without a hearing.

If allowed to stand, that action could set a number of devastating precedents that could ultimately endanger Americans who are guilty of no crime.

Cato's Ilya Soman comments.

As of this recording, we're recording this on a Wednesday, it was just over a week ago that you predicted that Donald Trump would use the Alien

Enemies Act as a tool for deportation. He, of course, has since asserted that it is powers under

this law that he has used to deport some people. What told you that this was pending?

So I actually first said that this could happen back in October,

and the reason why is because Trump said during the campaign

that he was likely to use the Alien Enemy's Act.

And so I thought there was a good chance that he meant what he said,

and it turns out that indeed he did.

What were the circumstances of this law's creation?

The Alien Enemies Act was part of the notorious alien and sedition acts of 1798, enacted at a time when the Federalist Party, which is a party in power at the time, was very scared and

concerned about possible infiltration or attacks by France during a Napoleonic war, or the

was under the wars, soon to become the Napoleonic Wars, and the U.S. and France were actually

engaged in a kind of undequared naval war in the Atlantic.

So the most notorious part of the Alien and Sedition Act was the so-called Alien Friends Act, which would have enabled the president to deport any foreign citizen who he thought was some

kind of a threat.

The Alien Enemies Act is narrower than that. It says that the president can detain or deport a citizen of a foreign nation,

but only if there's a declared war with that country, or alternatively, if there is an invasion or a, quote, predatory incursion

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