Trump invokes 1798 Alien Enemies Act, orders deportation of suspected Venezuelan gang members

President Trump on Saturday invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to order the swift detention and deportation of all Venezuelan migrants suspected of being members of the Tren de Aragua prison gang, treating them like wartime enemies of the U.S. government.

In his proclamation, the president argued the Venezuelan gang was "perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States," the legal threshold for invoking the 227-year-old war authority.

Mr. Trump's extraordinary order is breathtaking in its scope and has little precedent in U.S. history. The law it cites, enacted only 22 years after the Declaration of Independence, references invasions and incursions staged by "any foreign nation or government."