Donald Trump Draws Comparisons to Hitler After Promising to Invoke 1700s Law Linked to Japanese Internment Camps.Linh

Donald Trump is vowing to invoke a 226-year-old law to justify mass detainments and deportations in the United States, saying that Election Day will be known as “Liberation Day” if he is handed the keys to the White House.

The Alien Enemies Act of 1798 is a widely condemned immigration law that gives the president sweeping powers to bypass equal protection and due process while targeting foreign citizens. When it has been invoked, it has led to human rights crises that history looks down upon — but the law has not formally been repealed by Congress.

In a recent social media post after speaking in Aurora, Colo., about immigrants, Trump wrote, “We are now known, all throughout the world, as OCCUPIED AMERICA…But to everyone here in Colorado and all across our nation, I make you this vow: November 5th, 2024 will be LIBERATION DAY in America.”

Referencing a few prominent instances where American people were killed by non-citizens, Trump said he “will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail or kick them the hell OUT OF OUR COUNTRY.”

Without naming any target in particular, the former president continued by saying, “To expedite removals of this savage gang, I will invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to target and dismantle ever migrant criminal network operating on American Soil.”

He then vaguely accused his 2024 election opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, of inflicting “violence and terror,” falsely trying to paint her as the one responsible for U.S. border policy and a years-long rise in illegal border crossings.

In recent months, aggressive executive action from President Joe Biden — which was taken after Trump urged Republicans to tank Congress’ bipartisan border bill in February — has triggered a record decline in migrant encounters at the southern border, reaching lower levels than when Trump left office and sitting at roughly 41% of what it was at the peak of Trump’s presidency.

The Alien Enemies Act of 1798 is best remembered as the law that allowed President Franklin D. Roosevelt to place Japanese, Italian and German immigrants into internment camps during World War II, whether or not they were affiliated with military actions from their countries of origin.

“The Alien Enemies Act and complementing authorities have allowed presidents to target people on the basis of their identity, not their conduct or the threat they pose to national security,” writes Katherine Yon Ebright, a national security expert for the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice.

“In 1988, when Congress apologized and provided reparations for Japanese internment, it acknowledged that the policy was rooted in ‘racial prejudice’ and ‘wartime hysteria,’ not valid security concerns,” she continues in her recent article, which centers around the dangers of the overly broad 18th-century law. “Congress would later describe Italian internment as a ‘fundamental injustice,’ and the Department of Justice would recognize that German noncitizens had been targeted ‘based on their ancestry.’ “

Though the Alien Enemies Act is intended to be used only in wartime, and apply only when official governments have threatened military action, Trump could conceivably weaponize the law to apply to people hailing from any country he deems to be “invading” the U.S. — which is how he has described several nations whose residents have sought refuge in the States.

People familiar with his team’s policy deliberations previously told Rolling Stone that he has already come up with a “very convoluted and crazy” theory for how he can abuse the law to justify mass deportations, even if the U.S. is not at war with a foreign government.

Trump has long been known for spouting anti-immigration rhetoric, but his recent threats of mass deportations — and his increasingly inflammatory tone as Election Day nears — have sparked concern about the safety of immigrants and people of color who are perceived to be in the country illegally.

At the Aurora campaign rally on Oct. 11, local journalist Kyle Clark reported that, while discussing migrant crime, Trump said, “We have to live with these animals. But we won’t live with them for long.” Immediately after, a supporter in the crowd shouted, “Kill them!”

Also at the event, Trump immigration adviser Stephen Miller — a white nationalist whose organization America First Legal was initially listed on the advisory board of Project 2025 — said that under Trump, the United States would return to being a country of “only Americans.” (The United States is, of course, a nation largely composed of immigrants and their descendants.)