Can the revival of the rest of the Alien and Sedition Acts be far behind?

By a wacky coincidence, while researching the 1917 portion of this blog this morning, I came across a story about the round-up of suspected German spies during the day after the United States declared war on Germany. It was done without a court order using the president’s powers under the Alien Enemy Act of 1798, which authorized him to imprison males 14 years and older from countries with which the US is at war. As I was reading this, I suddenly realized that that was one of the Alien and Sedition Acts, which you might remember from AP American History. The others were repealed, but not the Alien Enemy Act, which FDR used to intern Japanese-Americans. It’s still the law of the land and available for Trump to use. Fortunately, there does have to be a declared war.

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