Sen. Hirono, Rep. Omar
reintroduce Neighbors Not Enemies Act.
By P.C. Staff
The Japanese American Citizens League on Monday issued a statement supporting last week’s efforts in the House and Senate to reintroduce bills to repeal Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
In its statement, JACL said it was “pleased to join a diverse coalition of over 80 organizations to support passage of the Neighbors Not Enemies Act,” as H.R. 630 and S. 193 are known. The bills were reintroduced following President Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration address during which he said he would invoke the law to stand up to “foreign gangs and criminal networks” in the United States and Trump’s signing of an executive order titled “Designating Cartels and Other Organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists.”
On Jan. 22, Sen. Mazie Hirono (D–Hawaii) — who in 2023 originally introduced the bill — reintroduced S. 193 to the Senate as Rep. Ilhan Omar (D–Minn.) reintroduced H.R. 630 on the House side of Congress.
On her website, Hirono stated, “In his war on immigrants, Donald Trump has made clear that he will stop at nothing to carry out mass deportations, including invoking the archaic, little known Alien Enemies Act of 1798. The Neighbors Not Enemies Act would finally repeal this draconian, xenophobic law to prevent immigrants from being deported without basic due process. Even though Trump insists that he is targeting ‘foreign gangs’ and ‘criminal networks,’ we know that the deportations won’t end there. I’m proud to introduce this legislation with Representative Omar, as we reaffirm our commitment to continue doing everything we can to protect immigrant communities across the country.”
S. 193 is co-sponsored by Sens. Cory Booker (D–N.J.), Tammy Duckworth (D–Ill.), Dick Durbin (D–Ill.); Ed Markey (D–Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I–Vt). and Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.).
H.R. 630 is cosponsored by Reps. André Carson (D–Ind.), Greg Casar (D–Texas), Joaquin Castro (D–Texas), Judy Chu (D–Calif.), Adriano Espaillat (D–N.Y.), Dwight Evans (D–Pa.), Valerie Foushee (D–N.C.), Jesus G. García (D–Ill.), Al Green (D–Texas), Raul Grijalva (D–Ariz.), Jahana Hayes (D–Conn.), Jonathan Jackson (D–Ill.), Sara Jacobs (D–Calif.), Pramila Jayapal (D–Wash.), Henry C. Johnson Jr. (D–Ga.), Summer Lee (D–Pa.), Doris Matsui (D–Calif.), James P. McGovern (D–Mass.), LaMonica McIver (D–N.J.), Grace Meng (D–N.Y.), Gwen Moore (D–Wis.), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D–D.C.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.), Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), Mark Pocan (D–Wis), Ayanna Pressley (D–Mass.), Delia Ramírez (D–Ill.), Mary Gay Scanlon (D–Pa.), Jan Schakowsky (D–Ill.), Bobby Scott (D–Va.) Lateefah Simon (D–Calif.), Adam Smith (D–Wash.), Melanie Stansbury (D–N.M), Mark Takano (D–Calif.), Rashida Tlaib (D–Mich.), Jill Tokuda (D–Hawaii), Juan Vargas (D–Calif.) and Bonnie Watson Coleman (D–N.J.).
According to JACL, Trump’s executive order would direct the attorney general, secretary of Homeland Security, and secretary of State to make preparations for the Alien Enemies Act to be used to “expedite mass deportations under the false claim that undocumented immigrants are a threat to our national security.”
It its statement, JACL noted that the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 was signed into law “ … during our nation’s infancy,” is the sole remnant of four Alien and Sedition Acts and only grants a president “the power to order the arrest, detention, and deportation of citizens of an ‘enemy nation’ during wartime.”
JACL also stated that it was used by President Roosevelt in 1941 to “order the arrest and detention of Japanese, German, and Italian nationals residing in the United States” after it entered WWII. “The use of the Alien Enemies Act set the stage for President Roosevelt to further expand his wartime powers with the issuance of Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, which led to the mass incarceration of over 125,000 people of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of whom were American citizens.”
To read the JACL’s statement in its entirety, visit here.
