What is the Alien Enemies Act? Here's how the 1798 law was invoked in the past.
The history behind the Alien Enemies Act
The Alien Enemies Act was one of four 1798 laws known as the Alien and Sedition Acts—a set of controversial statutes that emerged during a tenuous moment in the fledgling nation's history.
In the wake of the Revolutionary War, the U.S. attempted to claim neutrality on the world stage. Yet it still faced a military threat from Great Britain, which was seizing American ships to use in its ongoing war with France. In 1794, the U.S. signed a treaty with Britain to stop the seizures and improve Anglo-American relations, but the treaty strained the American alliance with revolutionary France.
Back at home, American lawmakers were split on which nation to support. Members of the emerging Democratic-Republican party, led by Thomas Jefferson, wanted the U.S. to ally with France, while Federalists, led by John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, thought the U.S. should align itself with Great Britain. Meanwhile, French privateers began seizing American merchant vessels in retaliation. An attempt to resolve the dispute through diplomatic means backfired when French diplomats demanded bribes.
News of failed negotiations, corrupt diplomats, and ongoing French seizures of American merchant ships pushed the nation to the brink of war against France. The Federalists, who controlled Congress, feared Democratic-Republicans' French sympathies—and looked with suspicion on non-citizen residents they thought of as 'aliens.' Unlike those who arrived before them, these new immigrants were largely poor and had not been in America during the Revolution or at the time of the country's founding, leading to debates on their ability to self-govern and their potential political leanings. Federalists worried that these immigrants would join the opposition party once they became citizens—and that they would lend their support to France if the nations went to war.
Those fears spurred the Federalist Congress to pass the Alien and Sedition Acts, slow down the citizenship process, and give the president authority to exert control over non-citizen residents during wartime. The Sedition Act criminalized anti-government speech, while the Naturalization Act increased the residency requirement for potential citizens from five to 14 years. The Alien Friends Act allowed the president to deport any non-citizen considered dangerous, and the Alien Enemies Act gave the president special authority to deem entire swaths of non-citizens dangerous and restrict their civil liberties during wartime.
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